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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23662981">Łøğįčäĺ</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasukewasameme/pseuds/sasukewasameme'>sasukewasameme</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Sasuke Angst Collection [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abuse, Bad Ending, Dark, Dark Uchiha Sasuke, Horror, Insanity, It Gets Worse, Murder, Schizophrenia, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, Uchiha Sasuke Has Issues, Uchiha Sasuke-centric</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 23:54:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>33,909</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23662981</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasukewasameme/pseuds/sasukewasameme</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Book 1 of the Logical series:</p><p>After the Akatsuki made a deal with the Leaf Village, Sasuke's former comrades and teacher began to realize just how broken he was. </p><p>Sasuke-centirc<br/>Insanity </p><p> <br/>*Team Taka is part of the Akatsuki and this takes place after Itachi's death.*</p><p>This has horror in it. (Sasuke isn't exactly mentally stable.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Sasuke Angst Collection [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1695241</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>88</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Prologue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The next chapter will be in Sasuke's POV (but not 1st person.) </p><p>Thank you for reading!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Leaf Village. Working with the Akatsuki. The Akatsuki themselves were surprised by the sound of it. But they had no choice. Quite simply, the monster the world was dealing with was much too strong for either side to deal with.</p><p>Soldiers of controlled dead were coming to life, courtesy of Kabuto. Their goal was seemingly to attack the Leaf Village as the other villages had few casualties. The Aktsuki's ultimate plans were to rule a peaceful world.</p><p>However, they couldn't make a peaceful world if there was no world. The Leaf Village themselves wanted as little casualties as possible for their own people and the other villages as well.</p><p>When the Akatsuki first offered to team up, the Leaf Village did everything they could to make sure the offer was legitimate. They carefully handled the letter, put the letter through labs, and guarded the city with anbu, scared it was a trick.</p><p>But when the casualties of their people became too great and the letter was decidedly legitimate, they began to truly consider the offer. When a second letter was sent with a time, location, and date, they sent their strongest anbu out to see about the offer.</p><p>When the Akatsuki made a deal with the anbu, the agreement was to send Sasuke to the Leaf for a sit-down deal to be made. The Leaf Village wanted one of their own to sign the deal. They would be more likely to trust one of their own, even one who was rogue, than a rogue outsider.</p><p>Sasuke only agreed if he would be able to bring his team with him as backup. The exception was accepted by the Leaf. After all, they'd have their strongest around. If it was just Sasuke and his team vs. some of the most powerful ninja in the world, they would almost certainly win.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Self note: edited.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Deal</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sasuke wasn't in his happiest mood when he was sent to make a deal with the Leaf. He wanted to destroy the Leaf. To kill the elders one by one. But all the same, he understood that that would have to wait for later. He wanted to destroy the village himself. If the village was destroyed before he could get his revenge, he would be even more upset than he was now.</p><p> </p><p>He was almost attat Leaf Village when Karin sensed the anbu watching them. He continued walking, ignoring them. But Suigetsu was freaked out. "They're freaking me out," he'd said. Suigetsu was the type to complain.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke said nothing and, instead, looked around the familiar woods that surrounded the path to the Leaf. The last time he walked this path, he was 12. Or was he 13? He had a hard time remembering, it was so long ago. Memories of his time with Team 7 flooded his mind.</p><p> </p><p>It had been a while indeed.</p><p> </p><p>They finally saw the entrance to the Leaf. Sasuke scowled, remembering the good and the bad. This was the place he wanted to destroy. This was the place that disguised itself with good but was actually bad behind the curtains.</p><p> </p><p>The second they reached the gates, two anbu took place on either side of the team, ready to escort them. Sasuke scowled deeper. Were they stupid? Why would they risk something like showing clear distrust in the first place? He thought it was already clear that Taka vs the entire village would result in many deaths, including their own.</p><p> </p><p>They walked past the gate and down the streets, heading to a meeting hall where the Hokage resided. The more they walked down the street, the more Sasuke remembered things he didn't want to. He hated the bad memories because, well, no one likes bad memories. And he hated the good because he didn't want to like such a place, nonetheless get caught in nostalgia.</p><p> </p><p>But it was too late. Sasuke was already caught in the nostalgia and his mind felt like it was in the past. Like he was 12 (or 13) again. His mind felt in the clouds and it was hard to shake himself out of the trap of nostalgia he was in.</p><p> </p><p>Shikamaru was standing on guard at the Hokage's place, looking cautious. And walked inside ahead of them, leading them to the meeting hall. By the time they got there, Sasuke felt grounded enough to make decisions. But his eyes were starting to hurt. One thing he'd noticed when his eyes would hurt for hours was that he'd see things most often while they were in pain.</p><p> </p><p>He'd usually see still shadows in the corner of his eye that would disappear when he looked at them but, sometimes, the shadows would be walking or running andtand would always disappear when he looked at them.</p><p> </p><p>Another problem was that he'd often go into pointless, crazy laughing fits when his eyes hurt. He hoped the pain would go away soon. The last thing he needed was to start seeing things jumping up on him in the corner of his eyes during the meeting. Even worse would be if he laughed out of no where. Especially over something serious.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke closed his eyes, rubbed them quickly, and followed Shikamaru inside the meeting room. The first surprising things was how many people were there. Apparently, the meeting was public because his former teammates and former fellow genin were all there with their sensei's, as well as elders and high ranking shinobi of the village.</p><p> </p><p>All eyes were on him when he entered through the door. He heard some whispering. He ignored them and sat down at the end of the table, ready for the meeting to start so he could just leave already. The rest of his team stood behind him.</p><p> </p><p>He remembered everything Madara told him to say and waited for the meeting to officially start. He noticed last second that the Hokage wasn't there. The meeting would probably only start when she came in.</p><p> </p><p>As much as he tried to ignore the familiar faces, Sasuke got glimpses of Naruto's sad, hopeless face and the disappointment in Kakashi's. Sakura looked sad but she was forcing herself to not care.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke looked away and stared at the wall, refusing to look down. The Hokage - Tsunade - entered the room and everyone but Sasuke stood. That got him glares and scowls from almost everyone in the room.</p><p> </p><p>Naruto, who didn't care for silence, yelled at Sasuke. "Hey! Be respectful, you bastard! She's the Hokage!" Sasuke looked him in the eye. "She's your Hokage. Not mine." Whispers of discontent filled the room and Tusnade gave Sasuke a serious, thought filled look. And sat down. When she sat down, everyone sat down with her.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke paid close attention to the ways the elders acted and talked throughout the meeting. He wanted to memorize their faces and wanted to see if they were openly evil. He should've known the answer but none of them were openly cruel throughout the meeting.</p><p> </p><p>That gave Sasuke another reason to hate them. They lied to their own people, the foul creatures.</p><p> </p><p>Tsunade spoke. "This meeting has been called in order to make a deal with the Akatsuki. I am Tsunade, the Hokage, and I will be the one making the deal on the Leaf's end." Sasuke took this as his cue to talk. "And I, Sasuke Uchiha, am here to make the deal on the Akatsuki's end."</p><p> </p><p>And they started. "Before deciding any exceptions, we would like to hear what you, the Akatsuki, want from this deal."</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke nodded once. "First, we will protect each and every citizen as if they are part of the Akatsuki itself while this deal is in order. You can expect the utmost loyalty during this time. If you feel your citizens are not being treated right, tell our leader, Pain. This will not go unpunished."</p><p> </p><p>One of the most known facts about the Akatsuki was how loyal they were. They were known to die before ever snitching on their fellow members. Tsunade only hoped that this would indeed stay true to the village while under the deal. She supposed she had no choice but to trust their word.</p><p> </p><p>"Now, for our exceptions. Our exceptions are that the Akatsuki must be allowed to roam the village and must be treated as fellow citizens who can buy food and weapons the same as any other citizen. Next, the obvious: this deal will end once this war is over. Don't expect us to save any of your or your citizens' lives or to play nice when this is done with."</p><p> </p><p>Everyone in the room knew that that would be one of the exceptions. After all, they couldn't promise that they themselves wouldn't try killing any of the Akatsuki members when the deal was over. However, hearing how ruthlessly they'd easily kill mere citizens was chilling. Especially for those in the room who knew Sasuke as a child.</p><p> </p><p>How had things come to this? Why was Sasuke so messed up? They knew the massacre was gruesome but Naruto grew up an orphan and bullied. Why wasn't he as messed up as Sasuke? It was a common enough question.</p><p> </p><p>But they clearly didn't know everything about Sasuke, including what went on with Itachi and all the horrific experiments he'd seen while training at Orochimaru's hideout.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke felt his eyes burning again and rubbed them. He wished he would stop having to do that. His teammates were staring to notice something was wrong. Sasuke didn't know why but he was starting to feel himself losing it. He wasn't sure if it was from seeing the place where he grew up caused it or if he was overwhelmed.</p><p> </p><p>Whatever it was, he was losing it. He felt like crying but also felt like laughing and ended up laughing into his hand, probably looking insane while doing so. He tried to do it quietly. Tried to make it less noticable. But it was all for nothing because everyone was looking at him in the first place.</p><p> </p><p>All Sasuke knew was that he could not stop laughing. He was slightly scared that his mind was breaking and he pressed his hands to his head, trying to keep himself together.</p><p> </p><p>Everyone looked at him in either terror or anger. What was so funny about this meeting? Some thought while some thought, is he going crazy? Sasuke himself didn't know. Maybe he was going crazy. After all, he felt like it. Naruto got tired of his laughing. "Why are you laughing?! What's so funny?!"</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke laughed harder at that and his former team felt unnerved. Never before had they seen Sasuke laugh. Moreover, they hadn't seen Sasuke laugh like this. Hadn't seen anyone laugh like this. Not even criminals who thought murder was funny.</p><p> </p><p>When Sasuke finally finished laughing, he felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. He felt like a completely different person than he was a second ago. He crossed his arms, ready to continue the meeting, unsure why everyone was still looking at him like he was crazy. He stopped laughing minutes ago. Why were they still caught up on it?</p><p> </p><p>Tsunade cleared her throat, getting the attention of the room. "Let's continue. We mostly accept your conditions. Our only condition is that you help us and do not harm a single one of our villagers. The only problem regarding your conditions is that I can't promise you the villagers will all treat you well. I can't force them to be kind."</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke understood that completely. "However, I can make it to where you can buy anything you want at stores and I can make it illegal to discriminate." Sasuke nodded. Good enough. "Very well," said Tsunade. "Is that all?" Sasuke nodded. "Okay. Then we're ready to vote."</p><p> </p><p>The elders already had papers and pencils in front of them, ready to vote. They each made their votes and put the papers in a small box with a slit in it. The too elder counted the votes and announced the answer. "58% of the votes say yes. The answer has been made. We will make the deal. The deal will be in effect starting tomorrow."</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke nodded. It was a close call. Understandably so. Who, in their right minds, wanted dangerous S class criminals to wander their village?</p><p> </p><p>Tsunade wrote down the Leaf's part of the deal and signed her name. Sasuke wrote down the Akatsuki's part of the deal and also signed his name. Finally, the meeting was over. Sasuke and Tsunade got up at the same time. Tsunade held out her hand, ready to shake.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke looked at her hand for a good several seconds before deciding it would be official to take it and shook it. Her hand was cold and sturdy. Sasuke scowled. Her hand was just like the elders of the village. Cold yet somehow sturdy.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke got up and left the room. Naruto quickly got up and ran after him. "Hey, Sasuke, I think your friend wants to talk to you," Suigetsu half teased. Sasuke ignored him. Ignored everyone. These were the people who pretended to be so sweet and innocent yet they were the ones who ordered the murder of his entire family. They were evil.</p><p> </p><p>When he got out of the Hokage's tower, he ran fast most of the way to the Akatsuki hideout. His team had a hard time catching up and had to take a break. He was clearly more stressed than he thought he was. He usually didn't run that fast.</p><p> </p><p>When they finally got to the hideout, they talked to Pain about how the meeting went. When Pain and Madara were satisfied, they left to lay down.</p><p> </p><p>Starting tomorrow, the Akatsuki would move to the Leaf Village to help protect the people.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. The Barbeque</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next day, the Akatsuki packed up and traveled to the Leaf Village. They all arrived at different times. No particular meeting time was set. They were free to wander with the only orders being to keep an eye  on Naruto and protect the village.</p><p> </p><p>When Sasuke and his team got there, they received glares and hushed gossip. Sasuke ignored the villagers and pushed down his hate for the village who continued to live peacefully even after ruining his life. Sasuke led his group to where he used to live so he could buy rooms for them. </p><p> </p><p>It took a few hours to finish the process of buying his room back but when he did, he was able to relax. The four decided to live in the same place. For one, the order was to stick to partners for in case, for two, he could converse and keep track of his team more easily this way, and, lastly, the cost was less this way.</p><p> </p><p>The team was used to living together so there were zero complaints when Sasuke said they would. Sasuke sighed. The deal was that they would be considered villagers now which meant that he was technically still a genin.</p><p> </p><p>After almost finishing settling in, a knock was heard at the door. Suigetsu sluggishly answered it. "Is Sasuke there?" Kakashi. Sasuke scowled and got up to speak to his former teacher. What did he want? </p><p> </p><p>Kakashi had a smile on his face and Sasuke gave a blank, confused look. "Now that you're re enrolled as a citizen, you're also re enrolled as a student which means you're my student again." Sasuke scowled even deeper and crossed his arms.</p><p> </p><p>Pain wanted them to comply with the village in every way possible and Sasuke knew that training alongside the Leaf shinobi would only improve teamwork. It could also be used as an advantage for when attacking the village, he'd know their each individual strength more detailedly.</p><p> </p><p>But could he really work alongside the people who ordered the murder of his clan? Sasuke leaned against the wall and thought. "What about my teammates?" He asked. Kakashi continued smiling much to Sasuke's annoyance. He clearly wasn't faltered. </p><p> </p><p>"How about this: if you beat me in a battle, you can be dubbed a teacher and your team will be dubbed your students." Sasuke stood up straight. Not a bad idea. But then he saw Kakashi's face and narrowed his eyes. There was a catch.</p><p> </p><p>"We're working in teams of two or more to improve our teamwork with the Akatsuki. Your team will be working alongside Team 7." Sasuke glared. He might as well have just been Kakashi's student again. But at least this way, he wouldn't have to stick as close to Team 7. </p><p> </p><p>Even greater than his complaints was that Pain would most certainly see this as a good opportunity for the Akatsuki to spy on Naruto's power. Sasuke closed his eyes. It seemed he had no choice. </p><p> </p><p>"Fine," said Sasuke. Kakashi smiled even more. "We're going to practice teamwork by meeting with each other first. Let's talk over a barbeque." Kakashi left.</p><p> </p><p> If Sasuke was Naruto, he'd be complaining loudly right now. But he wasn't. He was an Uchiha and Uchiha kept their mouths shut when upset. So he swallowed down any complaints and him and his team went to the place he assumed Kakashi wanted to meet at: Yakinuku Q.</p><p> </p><p>He had memories of going there with his former fellow genin after Naruto drug him out of the house or after missions with his team. "Sasuke?" Suigetsu called to Sasuke. "Suigetsu's been talking to you for the last five minutes." Karin reprimanded. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke quickly turned his head to the left. Not because Karin was talking to him but because a shadow was quickly running past them. Karin looked startled. Sasuke rarely had such sharp reactions outside of fights. But before she could say anything, Sasuke opened the door to the restaurant and walked in.</p><p> </p><p>There, the new team 7 was sitting in a booth for 8. Sasuke walked to the table and Naruto and Sakura noticed him. Naruto was looking happier than he was when he first saw him at the meeting. </p><p> </p><p>Naruto was, indeed, happier. He was glad to be working with him once again, even if it meant working side by side with his new team that replaced them. Sasuke sat down next to Kakashi, across from Naruto and Sakura. Karin was going to sit next to Sasuke but Suigetsu got there first and sat next to him instead. Jugo sat next to her.</p><p> </p><p>"Today, we're all training together to improve teamwork. Our team has been ordered to watch yours so we'll cycle out the other teams to work on teamwork with us," said Kakashi.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke gave a blank look. Sasuke had changed a lot. Kakashi had a hard time reading his student - no; former student - now. But if Sasuke was in a my way the same as he used to be, he could assume he was annoyed to have to work with others supposedly needlessly.</p><p> </p><p>But even though Sasuke changed dramatically didn't mean that the others had. Even though they had a hard time reading Sasuke, Sasuke could still read them perfectly fine. They were the same annoyances he shared a bond with. A bond he was determined to erase. </p><p> </p><p>Sakura and Naruto looked at Sasuke's teammates cautiously. They didn't know them so they tried determining what kind of people they were. To them, they looked like any other Akatsuki member. Strong but criminal.</p><p> </p><p>Suigetsu looked freaked out by the states while Karin glared at Sakura. Jugo was as peaceful as he always was when he wasn't consumed by his curse mark. Sasuke's eyes wandered the restaurant, remembering different sights, smells, and tastes. Nostalgia was nearly consuming him. </p><p> </p><p>Finally, Sakura asked what was on her mind. Sasuke finally got tired of Sakura nervously glancing at him and sighed. "What?" She looked surprised, then nervous. And finally, she asked what was on her mind. "Why were you laughing at the meeting yesterday? Don't take offense but what's wrong with you?" </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke faltered and closed his eyes. He thought of an answer. Then, he opened them. Sasuke didn't know why he wanted to be honest. However, Sasuke was a very impulsive and confused person. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke didn't know the reasoning behind his decisions half of the time other than that he felt like it and that his decisions were based on his traumas.</p><p> </p><p> Like his decision to destroy the Leaf. It was completely based on dissociation and impulsivity caused by trauma. By the end of the day, he was just running from his problems by pushing them onto other people.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke was a broken wolf who howled "blame." </p><p> </p><p>So, to answer Sakura a question so distinct and definitive about himself could only provide one simple answer: I don't know. But if you were a psychologist, you'd hear "I don't want help so I'll try to avoid the question."</p><p> </p><p>Sakura clearly saw through the answer blocking but decided to keep quiet. She no longer knew Sasuke and had no idea how he would react to her pushing an answer. If she were to be honest with herself, she was scared of him. </p><p> </p><p>After Sasuke tried to kill her, she didn't want to get on his bad side anymore. He clearly had no qualms with putting her head on a platter. She didn't want to push that.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke noticed this. Naruto, however, was the type to be loud even in the face of fear. Sasuke genuinely thought Naruto liked to hear himself talk. "What kind of answer is that?" Asked Naruto. Sasuke ignored him. But not in a dissociative way.</p><p> </p><p> Instead, he ignored Naruto just like the old times. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke caught himself feeling like it was the old times. But before he let himself get warm inside, a memory flashed through his head. The memory of his brother's dead face. Lifeless yet somehow happy. Sasuke grew cold immediately and felt a barrier between him and his former team.</p><p> </p><p>The food arrived. Sasuke liked to enjoy eating. Not the taste of it but the process of it. The relaxing feeling that came with eating. Sasuke didn't care much for taste anymore. Not since his clan died.</p><p> </p><p>Suigetsu ate a lot which resulted in Karin reprimanding him. "Suigetsu! Don't eat all the food. There's no other people here." Suigetsu looked confused. "What? I'm not eating all the food." Then, his face shifted into mischief. "Oh, I know what it is, Karin. You're just jealous that I'm sitting next to Sasuke." </p><p> </p><p>Karin pushed her glasses up and gave an annoyed, appalled look. "What does that mean? Why would I want to sit next to Sasuke?" Suigetsu laughed. "I know your secret, Karin. And you can't hide it." Karin got up and punched Suigetsu's head in. The dent in his face was replaced with water and water spewed everywhere.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke wouldn't have cared about their senseless squabbling if it weren't for the fact that it made Jugo upset and an upset Jugo meant Sasuke having to use his eyes. He didn't know how much he should use his eyes so he tried limiting his use of them.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke looked Karin and Suigetsu each in the eye. "Sit down. Now." Karin made excuses for why they were fighting before sitting down while Suigetsu gave a scared look before sitting. </p><p> </p><p>Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi had unsure looks on their faces. This was the team Sasuke picked himself. They were a...different kind of group. They soon finished eating and left the restaurant. Kakashi addressed Sasuke outside.</p><p> </p><p>"We will have our battle at 1 this afternoon. Don't be late." Sasuke figured the irony to that was still relevant, even after all those years. "Hn." Answered Sasuke. And they parted ways. The team went to their new house and Sasuke locked himself in the only room in the house. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke flashed his Sharingan to make sure it would work fine in the battle but it hurt terribly. It was pain he would have to endure. He needed to pretend his eyes were working fine. Anyone who found out about his eyes being out of control and hurting would have an extreme advantage over him.</p><p> </p><p>Immediately. After deactivating his Sharingan, Sasuke's vision became filled with black dots that turned into moving shadows. He lay on the bed and just let it happen. The shadows walked around his bed and stood over him, watching him. "Sasuke." Sasuke's head quickly turned to look at a shadow that was kneeling down towards him. </p><p> </p><p>The voice that called his name sounded vague, almost like a dream.  If he hadn't experienced it before, he would've thought he was just hearing things. The shadow that was kneeling down got closer and closer to Sasuke's face until Sasuke could see almost nothing but black in his vision.</p><p> </p><p>The shadow outstretched it's long alien-like fingers to Sasuke's face and Sasuke felt a cold touch to his cheek. He decided to activate his Sharingan again, striving to see what these creatures were so he could rid of them. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke knew it wasn't the smartest idea but he was tired of seeing these shadows all the time. He wanted to figure out a way to get rid of them and the best way to do that was by experimenting with his Sharingan, which was causing all of this.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke had never tried activating his Sharingan again after the shadows came out so he didn't know what to expect. But when he activated it, he pushed himself up onto the bed in fear.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. First Time Seeing Them</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A good part of it is talking about how broken Sasuke is. I apologise if you found this chapter boring.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They were each different creatures. One was a white creature who was tall and what Sasuke assumed were long fingers were actually long nails. The next creature looked like a Labrador dog except it had all sharp teeth. The next creature was horrifying.</p><p> </p><p>It was his mom.</p><p> </p><p>She had a giant gash in the back of her neck and she was deathly pale. Her cold, dead eyes looked at Sasuke caringly. As if she missed her youngest son. She reached out to Sasuke and Sasuke didn't know what to do.</p><p> </p><p>He didn't want to hurt his poor loving mother's feelings by rejecting her cold hand but at the same time, he couldn't trust it. Sasuke thought to the time he saw his parents' dead bodies on the floor. His poor, poor mother. Sasuke looked at her face.</p><p> </p><p>A mix of sadness and grief washed over him and he reached his hand out to hers.</p><p> </p><p>She took his hand when, suddenly, a very loud, ominous horn blew from the ceiling of the room. Sasuke quickly looked up and saw, well, nothing. He put his head back down to find what made that noise only to be scared by a pure white, humanoid creature without a nose. It had blood pouring out of its eyes and its nails were nonexistent.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke saw into its mouth and saw that it had very sharp, piranha like teeth. Its skin seemed seemed very soft and it's bones fragile. What had happened to his mother? Sasuke looked around the room, searching for her but found no trace of her.</p><p> </p><p>Moreover, he didn't know what to do about the creature. Blood kept pouring out of its eyes and onto the carpet. He wondered if Karin had sensed the creature at all and wondered why his teammates weren't coming to help him.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke knew he should deactivate his Sharingan but was scared that that was when they would attack. He got off of the bed and circled around the creature slowly. It seemed like it couldn't see well because of the blood pouring from its eyes so that was a definite advantage.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke circled to the door and got out of there looking behind his back all the way to the living room. "Sasuke. Why're you acting all scared?" Suigetsu laughed. "What, are you scared of the dark?"</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke frowned. This wasn't funny. He kept watching the creature until he felt he had no choice but to deactivate his Sharingan. He needed to not cause suspicion over trouble with his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Now, Suigetsu liked to consider himself the only normal person in Team Taka. However, if he were being generous, he'd say Sasuke was fairly normal himself, considering his past.</p><p> </p><p>However, Suigetsu knew Sasuke was starting to lose it months ago, even before Itachi's death. Sasuke was broken four times. Once during the massacre, once around the time he arrived at Orochimaru's, once after Itachi died, and once when he was told the truth of his clan's murder.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke had noticably become broken after the four years of training under the gruesome Orochimaru. Sasuke had seen so many terrible things when living under Orochimaru's roof that it changed him. He had become numb to hurting innocents and even killed his own teacher.</p><p> </p><p>The third time Sasuke broke was the second Itachi's head hit the ground. It was a huge mental fracture. The one goal he'd had his entire life was now gone. And so was his purpose to live. After Itachi died, Sasuke immediately fell to the floor, numb.</p><p> </p><p>It was his own way of having a panic attack. His mind was so overwhelmed that he simply felt nothing but tiredness. He was tired. Tired of everything, including himself.</p><p> </p><p>Then, Sasuke broke a fourth time. And to make things worse, he broke twice within just a few days. Something no human could handle. When Sasuke broke that fourth time, his mind had woken up and he was stronger than ever. It didn't take long to find out that he was feigning strength and in reality, he was weak.</p><p> </p><p>But Sasuke was lying to no one but himself.</p><p> </p><p>Yes, Sasuke was strong in a way. But in the way that an Olympic champion learns how to run faster than ever through steroids. He was learning to run from his past by getting high on revenge and he was coming back stronger than ever.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke had broken so many times and the only thing he learned from breaking was how to run from his problems even faster. He was running from his problems so fast that he was practically flying.</p><p> </p><p>And by pushing his problems down constantly, Sasuke started to break into pieces slowly. See, a human can break without falling apart but if you don't fix the cracks, the human will fall eventually break completely.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke was on the road to turning into pieces.</p><p> </p><p>And, frankly, Suigetsu had decidedly come to the conclusion that maybe Sasuke's kind of breaking was the kind that turns one into insanity. Sasuke thought he was hiding his insanity buy he was only hiding it from himself.</p><p> </p><p>So when Sasuke walked from something that wasn't there, Suigetsu wasn't surprised.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke himself, however, was very surprised by the situation. When his Sharingan deactivated, the creature lost all of its details and turned into a shadow. Sasuke was surprised to find out that these were the type of creatures who were following him around the place. It was unsettling.</p><p> </p><p>When the shadow disappeared into a wall, Sasuke berated himself. Why didn't he do anything about the creature? He ultimately decided that it was because he saw his dead mother which threw him into a shock, causing him to freeze.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke tried clearing his mind. He hated thinking of his traumas. Absolutely hated it. He thought about the fight he'd have with Kakashi and checked the time. He had 30 minutes left. He didn't know what he was going to do. He'd have to use his Sharingan at some point which was a problem.</p><p> </p><p>What if he saw things while fighting Kakashi? Would he be able to ignore them? The thing was, when he saw the creatures, it was like he was in a different world. Like he was between the veil of subconsciousness and consciousness. He was in a completely different state of mind when he saw those things and his mother.</p><p> </p><p>Hopefully, he'd be conscious of his surroundings enough to win the fight.</p><p> </p><p>Soon, it became time. Time to meet Kakashi. He walked to the door and Karin and Jugo followed. Karin yelled at Suigetsu to come, even though Suigetsu just wanted to relax. Suigetsu drug himself to the group and followed them.</p><p> </p><p>Kakashi was waiting at the old training grounds when they got there. There was a group of people - old genin comrades - who were waiting to see how the fight would go down. Sasuke's eyes trailed over the group until they landed on Danzo.</p><p> </p><p>He would be the first.</p><p> </p><p>Then, he parted ways with his team who joined the crowd and walked to Kakashi, ready for the fight.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Sensei</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lady Tsunade came out, late. Sasuke caught the other Akatsuki members in his eye. When had they gotten there? Were they already there? How did he not see them? And most of all: were they actually there or was he just seeing things?</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke frowned. The fight hadn't even started yet and he was already questioning his eyes. Tsunade stood between the teacher and student. "Are you ready?" Kakashi nodded and Sasuke replied with a "hn."</p><p> </p><p>"Okay," said Tsunade. "Get ready and" - Sasuke prepared himself. Fighting was an art and no art looked good when overly rushed. "Go!" Yelled Tsunade. Kakashi immediately threw kunais at Sasuke and Sasuke dodged them, running to the side. He wouldn't use his Sharingan until absolutely necessary.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke ran at Kakashi, ready to get this over with, and they clashed kunai with sword. Sasuke pulled back, dodging Kakashi's left hand and punching at Kakashi only to miss. They kept punching at each other, kicking, and dodging until they were tired if it.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke and Kakashi pulled back simultaneously and Sasuke let Kakashi have the first large jutsu. Kakashi weaved the hand signs for the fireball jutsu and Sasuke copied him.</p><p> </p><p>They blew fire that competed to win. The intensity of the fire they blew was the same and each if their fireeballs incinerated with neither of them getting hurt. Kakashi seemed as ready to get this over with as Sasuke and they each stopped, waiting for the other to attack.</p><p> </p><p>Kakashi pulled his mask down, revealing his Sharingan. Sasuke had to win this. He wanted to stay with his own team. He didn't want to be surrounded by the people of the past. So he tried. For the first time in a long time, he saw the person he was fighting as an equal; a danger.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke felt he had no choice and looked up to the sky, taking in the peacefulness of the grey clouds and the humidity in the air. He activated his Sharingan, prepared to see creatures of the unknown and creatures of the dead.</p><p> </p><p>He looked down, ready. This time when activating his Sharingan, he saw the old man Hokage. The third Hokage. He had a stab sound in his chest and was watching Sasuke fondly. Sasuke furrowed his brows. How dare he look at him fondly. He was half of the reason his clan was murdered.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke glared at the air and Kakashi looked to where Sasuke was looking, trying to figure out what was wrong with his former student. But Kakashi saw absolutely nothing and a small pain hit him emotionally. It was painful to see how his student had fallen apart. Even worse was that he couldn't help him.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke turned to Kakashi, ignoring Hiruzen. Kakashi came at him and Sasuke dodged all of his hits even more quickly than before and activated his Amaterasu. Kakashi ran while his Amaterasu trailed him. Kakashi outran the black flames and Sasuke groaned, pressing his palms to his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Kakashi took this as his chance and created the illusion of being Orochimaru showing up to the training grounds with his shadow clone. When Sasuke looked up and saw Orochimaru, he immediately ignored him, automatically thinking he was seeing things.</p><p> </p><p>So when Orochimaru ran up to Sasuke, he stayed still which resulted in him being grabbed by the hand and nearly stabbed. The crowd and Kakashi were confused as to why Sasuke's reaction was so delayed. But Sasuke killed the shadow clone and ran at Kakashi before anyone questioned it further.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke was trying to use as little chakra as possible for his finale. He was going to end the fight soon. Luckily, it was a rainy day. He could use this to his advantage. They threw more small jutsus at each other before Sasuke decided to end the fight once and for all.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke ran and jumped on top of a wooden pole. He weaved his hand signs before Sakura recognized the signs and told everyone to move back. She remembered them from the time that they went to Orochimaru's hideout and came across Sasuke.</p><p> </p><p>At that time, Orochimaru stopped him from completing the jutsu because it would've killed the Leaf Ninja. She didn't know what was coming but whatever it was, she knew it was big.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke finished weaving the signs and felt the strong electricity in the air gravitating toward his hand. "With the power of lightning, I'll finish this." The electricity gravitating towards his hand grew visible and grew bigger and bigger until a dragon was formed out of it.</p><p> </p><p>"Kirin," yelled Sasuke, throwing the lighting dragon to the ground where Kakashi was. The ground exploded and broke apart completely. What was once a pretty training ground was now pieces of grass and dirt cracked apart and spewed everywhere.</p><p> </p><p>The crowd looked through the dust, finding Kakashi. Kakashi had to activate his Mangekyo Sharingan to survive but his Susanoo was cracked. Never before had Kakashi experienced a cracked Susanoo.</p><p> </p><p>Tsunade looked at the tired condition both Kakashi and Sasuke were in and decided. "Sasuke Uchiha has passed!" The crowd gave unsure claps, not certain if clapping for an Akatsuki member was okay. Tsunade led Sasuke to the Hokage's tower, ready to register him as a teacher. Sasuke's team came with him to become registered as his students.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke had to take a picture and make an oath to protect his team. After signing several papers, Sasuke and his team were finished. It was unusual for someone to become a teacher like this as they usually had to go through a ceremony for new teachers but Sasuke was an exception as the next ceremony for teachers was nearly a year away.</p><p> </p><p>After finishing with the process, the newly dubbed team left to go home and rest. "So, sensei." Suigetsu teased Sasuke. Sasuke ignored him. Sensei's had meetings once a week to to register the amount of missions the teams had completed that week and to hear any problems. This also improved team work amongst the sensei's.</p><p> </p><p>Shadows were walking all over the place in Sasuke's vision. His eyes still hurt from the fight and if his eyes continued to get worse, he'd have no choice but to tell somebody. Sasuke hoped it wouldn't get to that point.</p><p> </p><p>At exactly 1 A.M., Sasuke's hawk came flying to the one room's window with a message. Sasuke opened the window and retrieved it. It was from Madara. He wanted to meet just outside the city in 15 minutes. Sasuke's team was asleep so he walked out of their house carefully and met Madara in the trees.</p><p> </p><p>Madara was wearing his usual outfit and mask. Sasuke saw Madara as one of the only people he could trust. As it was in the criminal world, you could never fully trust anyone. However, Madara was the one of the closest things he had to trust. He only trusted Madara and his team. That was it.</p><p> </p><p>"What's been going on with you?" Asked Madara. Sasuke's eyes widened. How did he know? Maybe it was because Sasuke was so mentally ill that he didn't understand himself or he noticed but ignored it. Whatever it was, Sasuke should've known how obviously messed up he was at that point.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke himself didn't know much. And he probably should've told Madara what was going on. Sasuke sighed. "My eyes. There's something wrong with them. And my brain maybe. I don't know what it is but I keep seeing things like shadows. I see dead people and strange creatures when my Sharingan is activated.</p><p> </p><p>Madara didn't seem surprised. "You know that story I told you of how I stole my brother's eyes?" Sasuke's eyes widened. Was he going to go insane? Madara's eyes narrowed behind the mask. "We could've replace your eyes with Itachi's but I burned his body in respect."</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke looked down, not sure what to say about his brother. All he could think was that his brother's body being respected was more important than changing eyes. Sasuke nodded in acceptance. This was okay. As long as he killed the elders before he died, his sanity didn't need to remain intact.</p><p> </p><p>After all, once his goal of killing the elders was finished, he'd practically be dead anyway. He'd no longer have purpose. But losing his mind was scary. It felt like he had no control. Like the shadows and monsters in his head were controlling him. Apparently, that was all Madara wanted to know because he let Sasuke free to go.</p><p> </p><p>One thing Sasuke noticed was that the details of the shadows became more and more visible the more he used his Sharingan. After his fight with Kakashi, he could very vaguely make out the details of the eyes and face of a shadow standing there, smiling and staring.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke knew it would look dumb so he did it when he got back home, but he tried talking to the shadows. That was a mistake because they answered back. He'd heard them speak before but he'd never directly tried having a conversation with them.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke asked one simple question. "What do you want?" The shadow that seemed to like creeping Sasuke out by smiling so largely answered. "To watch you." Sasuke didn't expect an answer like that and frowned. For the next hour, he felt their stares digging and digging into his back until his skin broke. But they didn't stop there.</p><p> </p><p>They dug into the meaty, white fat, through the muscles, blue veins, and into the marrow of bone.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke felt like they were digging deeply with those watching, staring eyes but that was nothing in comparison to the claws he felt when he woke up. It was the first time he physically felt anything. There were claw marks on Sasuke's arm and he didn't know how they were able to touch him.</p><p> </p><p>The fact that they'd hurt him while he was asleep made them more malicious than he previously thought. What would happen when his eyes got worse and worse? Would they be able to kill him? And most of all: did they want to kill him?</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Spiders</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The spiders started filling the floor and crawled up Sasuke's legs.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'll start doing summaries now. Sorry for not doing them before.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sasuke couldn't do anything about the scratches. Therefore, he didn't. He kept his eyes on the shadows but they should no sign of attacking. The rest of the day was a slow one. Sasuke hadn't yet been contacted by Kakashi to pair up with Team 7 for a mission and wasn't contacted by any of the Akatsuki for orders so the days following were quite slow too.</p><p> </p><p>The shadows stayed the same while the voices got worse.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke woke up one particular day to whispering. Loud whispering, quiet whispering, feminine whispering, and masculine whispering. When he first heard it, he was too tired to do anything. When he was awake enough to realize he was hearing whispering in his ears, his eyes widened and he sat up quickly, alarmed.</p><p> </p><p>That was a bad idea because he was met face to face with a shadow who had eyes so wide that its eyes looked as if they were going to pop out of its face and a smile so large, its skin was pushing deep into its cheekbones. Sasuke impulsively moved back from the face and covered his ears in an attempt to stop the whispering.</p><p> </p><p>The shadow smiled even bigger if that was even possible. Sasuke was upset, annoyed, and disturbed. He didn't need anyone enjoying his pain right now. The voices kept whispering for ten minutes and faded out eventually. Sasuke was left with the worry that he would hear the loud whispers when having an important conversation someday.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke went back to sleep.</p><p> </p><p>Two days later, Kakashi contacted Sasuke with one of his hounds. "Remember to attend the meeting of senseis at 5," Pakkun had said. Sasuke wanted to hit his head against the wall. How could he have forgotten? He wasn't an idiot but the days had felt like they were melting into each other and before he knew, he'd lost track of time.</p><p> </p><p>Moreover, was he supposed to be doing missions with his team? If so, how come no one told him? Sasuke felt a great annoyance and frowned. He looked at the sun. One hour until he had to leave. Sasuke sighed.</p><p> </p><p>The time passed quickly. Soon, it became 4:50 and Sasuke left. Sasuke got to the meeting exactly on time and stood, refusing to sit down. Tsunade's eyebrow twitched. "Sit down, Uchiha." Sasuke stared at the wall in deep thought. Everyone labeled him as an Uchiha rather than being Sasuke.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe if people saw him as Sasuke, he wouldn't have attached his very purpose to his last name. But either way, it was too late. The words "too late" triggered Sasuke back to the massacre. If only he'd come earlier...</p><p> </p><p>"Sasuke!" There was a loud crash to Sasuke's left that jogged him back to the present. Tsunade had collapsed the table in front of her with a fist. How long had she been calling him for? Sasuke didn't feel like getting into a fight so he sat down between Kakashi and Iruka.</p><p> </p><p>There wasn't that many people there at all because some teams were out on a mission. Even worse was the fact that Sasuke was apparently supposed to bring his team with him so now not only did he look disrespectful for not listening to Tsunade but he looked disrespectful for not doing what he was supposed to.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke didn't care though. They already hated him anyway and if they didn't, they would when he killed the elders. Tsunade begun the meeting. "Kakashi. You go first." Kakashi, Naruto, and Sakura discussed the missions they'd gone on recently, what ranks the missions were, and how teamwork was going. Each team did the same.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke was to go last because Tsunade had them go counter clockwise. Just when it was Iruka's turn a spider was crawling on the table. Sasuke ignored it. But then, spiders started coming in droves. Sasuke got up. Why wasn't anyone else doing anything? Was this a personal attack against him?</p><p> </p><p>Tsunade looked annoyed once again which made Sasuke annoyed. Did no one care that someone's spiders was trying to attack him? Sasuke looked around the room at the confused, judging faces. Why were they looking at him like he was crazy? If anyone was crazy, it was them!</p><p> </p><p>They clearly had no conscience.</p><p> </p><p>The spiders started filling the floor and crawled up Sasuke's legs. Sasuke jumped up, balancing on his chair. But the spiders started crawling up his chair too. Naruto had a hurtful, pitiful look on his face. Shikamaru looked like he was trying to figure out what was wrong with him.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke wanted to hurt them, to fight them. How dare they sit there and do nothing? Especially Naruto. Naruto who supposedly only wanted to help Sasuke. Naruto who supposedly cared about Sasuke. How dare Naruto sit there with a pitiful face without helping Sasuke?</p><p> </p><p>But the spiders didn't stop there. They stopped chasing sasuke and piled on top of each other, forming one large spider that jumped into the table in front of Sasuke. Luckily, it was only two feet tall. Sasuke could kill this thing easily. Sasuke took out a kunai and stabbed at the spider who dodged and jumped into his arm.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke stabbed the spider on his arm. "Sasuke! Don't!" Naruto yelled. Sakura's eyes filled with tears and she started crying. Sasuke frowned. Why were they siding with the creature? Sasuke felt cold. Sasuke wondered why he was feeling pain in his arm.</p><p> </p><p>The spider on Sasuke's arm had disappeared and, instead, Sasuke's kunai was stuck deep inside his arm. Sasuke was confused. And then, he realized why his arm was bloody. The spider had tricked him, the bastard. Sasuke looked around the room while pulling the kunai out, looking for the spider.</p><p> </p><p>A hand came flying towards his head and he turned around before everything went black.</p><p> </p><p>Kakashi felt a deep sadness He didn't want to knock his student out but he was losing it. If they weren't careful, Sasuke might've stabbed one of them. Kakashi picked Sasuke up and threw him over his shoulder. "Well. I'll take him home." And just like that, he left.</p><p> </p><p>The room was filled with confusion and something of horror. What was wrong with Sasuke? Shikamaru, being the smart person he was, was able to see what was wrong with his former fellow comrade. Shikamaru saw through Sasuke's brokenness. He remembered Hidan from the Akatsuki.</p><p> </p><p>Hidan was a very mentally ill person. Sasuke and Hidan were both very different people but they were both very mentally ill. They were both crazy. Just different kinds of crazy. Shikamaru didn't know everything about insanity but over the week, he'd only seen Sasuke get worse. He doubted Sasuke would ever get better.</p><p> </p><p>But that was a problem. What if Sasuke started hurting people from how mentally ill he was? If that was the case, they'd have no choice but to do something about it which would violate the deal with the Akatsuki and therefore possibly cause them to retaliate. That would be bad.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Shikamaru thought of the only solution to this problem that existed: they needed to get Sasuke back into his right mind somehow. This was really turning out to be a drag.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. To Help</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Kakashi asks Sasuke what's wrong and the teens who were once Sasuke's comrades are ordered to help Sasuke out in any way they can. Sasuke rejects. </p><p>Also: I would like to say I haven't abandoned the idea of Kabuto's reanimation jutsu. It explains some of why it hasn't been brought up at the end. I might actually edit in some stuff about the war in the chapters I have now because it's why the Akatsuki is there in the first place. If I do, I'll tell you. Thought this was more important than an author's note so I put it in the summary. Sorry if that's annoying.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Sasuke came to, Kakashi was sitting next to his bedside and his arm was bandaged up. Kakashi noticed he was awake. "Sasuke. I don't expect you to tell me everything but I would like to at least know why you stabbed yourself."</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke stared at Kakashi tiredly and rolled over stubbornly. Kakashi sighed. Sasuke didn't know why but he felt like telling him. Maybe he felt safe around his old Sensei still and maybe he was just so mentally ill that he no longer saw a reason to be secretive anymore. Whatever it was, Sasuke felt open.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke sat up slowly. "There were.... Spiders." He made a confused look. "The spiders piled up until they became one giant spider and it pounced on me. I stabbed it but when I looked away and then looked back, the spider was gone and my kunai was stuck in my arm." </p><p> </p><p>"There was no spider," said Kakashi. "What's been going on with you?" Sasuke had been decidedly honest enough and refused to answer. Kakashi sighed once again. "Get some rest." And he left. Sasuke wondered where Kakashi was going but then decided it didn't matter. He didn't care about the man anymore, after all.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke rested.</p><p> </p><p>Shikamaru, on the other hand, was a busy guy. He needed to create a proposition to help Sasuke out and explain why that would benefit the Leaf. He wrote a paper that filled two whole pages and turned it in to Lady Tsunade. Luckily, Tsunade was having a good, fast work day and got to his paper within 12 hours. </p><p> </p><p>When Tsunade finished reading, she immediately agreed to herself. Tomorrow, she would call for all of the team to come to her office. It was a simple mission, she though. They just needed to help figure out what was wrong with Sasuke during their free time, meaning that this mission would not get in the way of other missions.</p><p> </p><p>The next day, Tsunade called them in and gave them their orders. Team 7 seemed particularly happy to be given this mission. Shikamaru was just glad Tsunade passed his proposal. Shikamaru knew just how much danger Sasuke's insanity caused.</p><p> </p><p>When they were released, the group of teens decided to invite Sasuke to eat with them. Naruto offered to recruit Sasuke.</p><p> </p><p>When Sasuke woke up a second time, it was to Suigetsu slamming his door open to tell him something. "That Naruto guy is asking for you." Sasuke felt a great annoyance and got up. "Hey, Sasuke! We're going to eat somewhere. Wanna come?" Sasuke slammed the door in his face and tried going back to sleep but Naruto kept banging on the door nonstop.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke got up again and aggressively opened the door again. "What?" Naruto seemed happy that Sasuke opened the door again and asked Sasuke to join the rest of the teens for lunch. "No. Go away." Naruto frowned and then smiled. He clearly had a plan.</p><p> </p><p>"Alright but if you don't come with us, I'll keep knocking on the door." Sasuke glared at Naruto. He supposed he had no choice. "Fine. What time?" "Awesome!" Naruto said much too loudly. "We'll meet you at 2." Before letting Naruto win, Sasuke had his own trick up his sleeve:</p><p> </p><p>He would bring his team with him.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke knew his team wasn't exactly civilized and they were thugs. This was Naruto's punishment for forcing him out of the house. Sasuke waited until 1 to tell his team they were all going. They didn't complain much because they were hungry. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke started seeing the shadows again but what was new? He saw them every day.</p><p> </p><p>Before they knew it, it was time to go and the team went to the restaurant. Sasuke saw the looks on the teens faces when he walked in with his team and almost smirked. They sat at the table and, as Sasuke expected, his team acted like total thugs. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke observed the faces of his former comrades and he realized they were forcing themselves to be there. They threw glances that said they didn't want to be there. Sasuke felt an anger rise inside of him.</p><p> </p><p>How dare these people, whom he should hate, want nothing to do with him? If anything, he should want nothing to do with them; not the other way around. Sasuke got up and glared at the teens who didn't bother to even say hi and then stormed out of the restaurant.</p><p> </p><p>Shikamaru grimaced. The situation turned out way worse than he expected. He should've known that some of the teens hated the Akatsuki so much that they couldn't even look at them. Like Kiba, for example. Shikamaru should've given them a talk first. The group needed to see Sasuke as a person and not as an Akatsuki member.</p><p> </p><p>Shikamaru got up and went after Sasuke. He wasn't the best with comforting people. Especially not angry Uchihas but he needed to try. Sasuke's sanity was a priority right now and they needed to figure out how to make him as same as possible. The only way to do that was by getting close to him.</p><p> </p><p>Shikamaru caught up to Sasuke quickly and Sasuke threw his kunai at him. Shikamaru dodged easily. "I just want to talk to you." Sasuke glared. "I don't want to talk to you." Shikamaru dodged more kunai and Sasuke started to feel threatened. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke activated his Sharingan. He just wanted Shikamaru to go away. But the second he did, the shadows all turned into creatures. Sasuke stopped, unsure what was real. Maybe Shikamaru wasn't even chasing him after all.</p><p> </p><p>Shikamaru stopped when Sasuke did. Sasuke looked around the place. Shikamaru looked too. Maybe Sasuke was seeing something he hadn't. But there was nothing there. Sasuke pulled out his sword and Shikamaru went on guard. But Sasuke wasn't trying to attack him. Sasuke was preparing to attack the air.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke himself felt a great stress and clenched his left fist out of habit. His nails dug deep into his skin until his skin broke and bled. When was the last time he trimmed his nails? There was one creature in particular that disturbed him. </p><p> </p><p>That particular creature looked like an evil copy of Sasuke himself. Sasuke had to wonder; what would happen to he, himself if he killed the creature? The evil copy walked towards him and he pointed his sword at it. But the copy just stood there, smiling. Finally, Sasuke asked. "What are you?"</p><p> </p><p>The copy smirked. "I am you and you are me." Sasuke wanted to deny the accusation that he was same as the obviously evil version if himself but he looked exactly like him. His own eyes had the exact same hate for others and, secretly, himself. Sasuke frowned.</p><p> </p><p>Shikamaru thought quickly about what to do. Sasuke was clearly seeing things but was it possible to somehow make him stop seeing things? What if it had to do with his eyes? They couldn't just take Sasuke's eyes out and tell him to get better.</p><p> </p><p>"Sasuke," addressed Shikamaru. Sasuke looked at Shikamaru and was clearly on edge. "There's nothing there." Shikamaru thought it might help if Sasuke knew his threats were truly non-existent and simply things his mind or eyes made up. That turned out to be a simple hope because how do you convince someone that their eyes lie? </p><p> </p><p>Humans trust very few things in life but one of the things they can trust most are their own eyes. Humans rely on their eyes. Red is red because humans see it as red. If Sasuke sees shadows, they exist. Even if only in his mind. </p><p> </p><p>Even then, Shikamaru couldn't completely deny the possible existence of the shadows. There were stories in the past of people who had the ability to see the unseen. It was possible Sasuke was one of those.</p><p> </p><p>Whatever it was, it wasn't good because it was affecting Sasuke badly. Shikamaru tried thinking of a strategy to get Sasuke to calm down without getting hurt. The strategy was simple. While Sasuke was busy being distracted by whatever he was seeing, Shikamaru jumped behind Sasuke and held down his arms.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke groaned. Shikamaru was behind him so he couldn't turn his head far enough to put him under genjutsu. "I'll let you go when you calm down," said Shikamaru. Sasuke did not want to agree to that. He wanted to be let go now. But Shikamaru had him in a tight grip. </p><p> </p><p>Shikamaru purposely didn't use his shadow possession jutsu so Sasuke wouldn't feel even more threatened. Sasuke thought Shikamaru was against him. He thought he was holding him down so that the monsters would get to him. But after a few minutes of struggling, Sasuke gave up and relaxed. Shikamaru held his hands down behind his back for a minute more before letting go.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke turned around and stood across Shikamaru, calmed down enough to negotiate. "Why did you follow me?" Asked Sasuke accusingly. Shikamaru sighed. This mission was already a drag and it was only the first day. Shikamaru thought and decided the best outcome would come from being honest. Well, partly honest.</p><p> </p><p>"We want to help you, Sasuke. We know something's wrong with you and we want to help." Sasuke looked defensive and argued. "I don't want your help!" Shikamaru looked at Sasuke lazily. "Well, too bad. You're going to get our help whether you want it or not."</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke glared at Shikamaru. "Leave me alone. "Look," Shikamaru said. Maybe full honesty was best. "I don't want to be here either. But you falling deeper and deeper hurts both us and you guys. Do you really think you'll be able to get revenge while being that unstable? I was able to sneak up behind you easily. See? It doesn't just benefit us. It benefits you too."</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke wanted to argue. Why would they try to "help" him out of their own  personal gain? It made Sasuke angry. He didn't bother to waste anymore time with this guy who wanted to "help" him and left. Luckily, Shikamaru left him alone this time. </p><p> </p><p>Shikamaru wasn't sure how Sasuke's personality was now but the teens would have to continue helping him whether he wanted it or not. Shikamaru also thought it would be of benefit if they became friends with the members of Sasuke's team. That way, Sasuke would have a hard time saying no to interactions with the others.</p><p> </p><p> Sasuke's team was bound to end up on a mission with each one of the teams at some point throughout their stay at the village. That was good because, then, they'd get closer to Sasuke's teammates all the while getting closer to Sasuke, or at least having the ability for more options to help Sasuke. Shikamaru could only hope to find what Sasuke's problem was and then finding the solution.</p><p> </p><p>Shikamaru walked back to the restaurant. The issue was that they had no idea what was the problem. Shikamaru cleared his thoughts. He'd save more thinking for later.</p><p> </p><p>When Sasuke got home, Kakashi was waiting there for him. Inside the house. Inside his bedroom. With boxes surrounding him. Sasuke glared at Kakashi immediately. "Get out." Kakashi smiled. "Someone's in a bad mood. Sasuke didn't want to deal with this. "What are you doing in here?"</p><p> </p><p>"You see, I was ordered to live with you so you wouldn't cause any danger to the civilians with your seeing things." Sasuke wanted to use his amaterasu but reminded himself that this was the house they were paying for. "I'm moving in with you now," Kakashi said happily. Sasuke turned cold. There was nothing he could do about it. He sat on his bed. </p><p> </p><p>"Sleep on the floor." Kakashi smiled. "Actually, I already brought my own portable bed. I'll be sleeping in the living room." Sasuke ignored him. He'd kick the man out tomorrow. He was too tired to deal with this right now. "Don't get too careful, Sasuke," said Kakashi, getting serious. "Things are getting bad out there." Sasuke opened his eyes. </p><p> </p><p>"We'll be starting missions with the Akatsuki in a couple of days. We were only taking a break as a sort of trial run to make sure you kept your end of the deal. It's hell out there. We'll have to fight soon."</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke nodded once, acknowledging what he said. And rolled over. Kakashi got up and turned the light out. "Good night, Sasuke." And he closed the door.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Living Situations and Finding Kabuto</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Next chapter is much better. Promise.</p><p>Kakashi lives with Sasuke now and a new mission to find Kabuto has been ordered.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Please tell me if this chapter feels like I'm rushing things. Thanks!!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sasuke woke up to Kakashi's face. Sasuke had forgotten Kakashi was staying at their house. "I'm cooking breakfast. Wake up, sleepyhead." Sasuke hated being woken up. He glared at Kakashi.</p><p> </p><p>Kakashi smiled and left his room, going to the kitchen. Sasuke figured there was no point in going back to sleep and walked to the kitchen. His team was sitting at the table, waiting for food. Sasuke sat next to Jugo. Jugo was peaceful which was what Sasuke liked for the mornings.</p><p> </p><p>Suigetsu and Karin were the opposite. They were energetic from the get go. When Kakashi finished cooking, he brought the food to the table and they ate. Suigetsu and Karin fought over the food, calling each other fat. Other than that, they ate in silence. Kakashi himself wasn't a particularly loud person so the morning passed decently peacefully.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke noticed that the shadows were louder than before. "Sasuke," Sasuke's copy called for him. Sasuke ignored him. Sasuke was able to ignore them until he heard his brother's voice. "Sasuke." Sasuke looked for the shadow that the voice belonged to. He vaguely saw his brother's face. Sadness and regret filled Sasuke's eyes. Had his brother come back to haunt him because he killed him? </p><p> </p><p>"That's right," said Itachi. "You killed me and now your punishment is that I'll follow you for the rest of your life." Sasuke felt down. None of that mattered anyways. He'd probably die during or after killing the elders. Kakashi watched Sasuke interact with the air and stood next to Sasuke. </p><p> </p><p>He wasn't sure how to stop Sasuke from seeing things but he could only hope that getting him to stay in the moment would be helpful. He tapped Sasuke's shoulder and Sasuke startled. Sasuke looked at Kakashi and then back to the shadow. Then, he turned back to him.</p><p> </p><p>"What are you seeing?" Asked Kakashi. Sasuke frowned and pushed away from him. Then, he went to his room to sleep some more. </p><p> </p><p>Sleep was important to Sasuke. Life sucked but sleep was great. Sleep was an escape to another world. Sasuke dreamed often which only furthered the "escape to another world" part. His world of dreams was a great escape. But there was too sides when it came to sleep for Sasuke.</p><p> </p><p>The first side was that he lived sleep and that it was an escape.</p><p> </p><p>The second side was that he hated sleep and that sleep trapped him.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke would sometimes have nightmares of terrible things that he couldn't get out of his head. Those were the times that Sasuke harbored an absolute hatred for sleep. </p><p> </p><p>Unfortunately, this was one of those times where sleep did more bad than good. In his dream, he was back to where Orochimaru's Hideout. Orochimaru was forcing Sasuke to watch a gruesome experiment. Sasuke didn't want to be there. Sasuke hated it there. </p><p> </p><p>Orochimaru took out a scalpel and cut into a man's top layers of skin on his chest. Then, he cut deeper. White fat showed through the skin and the man groaned in pain. Orochimaru cut into the white fatty flesh until he cut through veins. The man started begging. Sasuke saw the severed blue tube buried in the white fat. </p><p> </p><p>Then, Orochimaru cut even deeper. He cut through muscle and the man started panting. The man looked as if the pain was so bad that he couldn't even talk. Orochimaru cut into the man's ribs, getting to the heart. The man panted and panted until he passed out. Orochimaru put his hands in through the fat, muscle, and bone and separated the bid hole in the man's skin to reveal his heart.</p><p> </p><p>Unfortunately, Orochimaru had made a mistake and a piece of muscle dug into the man's heart. Orochimaru looked angry. Then, he took the scalpel and stabbed the man between the ribs, in his arms, legs, throat, and heart in anger. He blamed the man for his failed expirament and took his anger out on him.</p><p> </p><p>That was one of the first times Sasuke saw a shadow. A shadow ran past his eyes and he looked at it only for it to melt into the wall.</p><p> </p><p>Something tapped his shoulder and Sasuke woke up in a gasp. </p><p> </p><p>Immediately, he felt grateful that he was just dreaming and was glad to be back in the real world. Sasuke was face to face with Kakashi once again. He was glad to be out of that nightmare of a memory but he hated that Kakashi felt the need to keep waking him up.</p><p> </p><p>"I just received news from Tsunade. We're going on a mission. Get ready. We'll meet outside the gates of the Leaf Village" Sasuke nodded and stood up to get ready. Due to the years of practice, it only took Sasuke a few minutes to get ready. </p><p> </p><p>Suigetsu, Karin, and Jugo were already ready and waiting. "Man. And I was going to rest all day," Suigetsu complained. "We have no choice," said Sasuke. "Besides, this is one of the best ways to learn the skills of the Leaf. We can use this to our advantage." </p><p> </p><p>"I know, I know," said Suigetsu. And they were off. </p><p> </p><p>They met with, surprisingly, two teams. Kakashi's team and Kurenai's former team. Shikamaru was tagging along. Kakashi didn't tell Sasuke what mission it was but considering the amount of people that were coming, it would be a tough mission.</p><p> </p><p>Kakashi explained what the mission was. "Our job is to get Intel on the enemy. We'll use you three and Karin to find the enemy," Kakashi gestured to Hinata, Kiba, Shino, and Karin. "Shikamaru will be there for strategizing. The rest of us will be there to either capture the enemy or gather information on him." </p><p> </p><p>This would take a lot of fighting because there was no doubt Kabuto was left unguarded. Sasuke thought back to Kabuto and how cruel he was. He was almost as bad as Orochimaru. But he wasn't bad enough for Sasuke to need to kill him. </p><p> </p><p>Shikamaru looked at Sasuke's bandaged arm and hoped it wasn't too damaged for Sasuke to fight to his fullest. Sasuke noticed Shikamaru looking at his arm and narrowed his eyes. He hated the fact that everyone knew that something was wrong with him and jumped in front of the group to stop Shikamaru from staring. "Let's go."</p><p> </p><p> Kakashi wasn't finished explaining but he could explain the rest on the way. Sasuke's team didn't wait for the others and left ahead of them. Sasuke had confidence that his own team could finish the mission themselves without help. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke did not underestimate his team. He knew how powerful they were. He handpicked them himself. They were some of the best out there. Good enough to be ranked S Rank criminals. Sasuke wasn't one to be proud of others but he was proud of his team. You would never catch him saying it though. </p><p> </p><p>Groups of controlled undead fought off the ninja but they were easily swept to the side.</p><p> </p><p>They ran and fought for several hours before Karin and Kiba caught a hint at the same time. The mission to find Kabuto would take much longer than that though. Kabuto was smart. He knew how to trick sensory ninja. But over her life, Karin had learned from many tricks and wouldn't fall for them again.</p><p> </p><p>Karin's knowledge of this trickery cut the time it took to find Kabuto in half. </p><p> </p><p>Kakashi was impressed. Sasuke certainly picked an impressive team.  It took three whole days of searching before they finally found the man. What was disturbing was that after the second day, they no longer got attacks from the reanimated humans. It was almost as if Kabuto wanted them to come.</p><p> </p><p>If that was the case then Kabuto clearly had enough confidence to believe that he could take them down. That wasn't good. That meant that Kabuto was a lot stronger now.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke was doing surprisingly well with seeing things. It was probably because he hadn't needed to use his Sharingan yet. But a paranoia was running through him. After seeing many undead, he wondered if he would run into any of the dead Uchiha. What would his clan say to him if they ran into him? Would they blame him?</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke certainly believed he deserved blame but believing in being deserving of blame was different than people actually blaming you. Self blame was painful but more of an assumption. If the victims themselves blamed him, it would confirm those assumptions, making it form into a solid opinion rather than a passing thought.</p><p> </p><p>Finally, it was time to enter where Kabuto was hiding. The group prepared themselves. Hinata used her Byakkugan to see Kabuto sitting in a cave, looking rather monstrous and daresay snake like. They were ready. Ready for this to end.</p><p> </p><p>But there was an unsettling feeling amongst the group of teams. The feeling that this was somehow a trick. After all, Kabuto couldn't be caught just like that. Right? They were about to find out.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Broken Again</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sasuke laid with his back to the floor and put his hands over his lungs, gasping for air. His lungs were starting to hurt painfully. He thought about how much he loves his mother and laughed. It was funny how much he loved his mother, for some reason. </p><p> </p><p>Basically, Sasuke goes even more insane.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The teams decided on a sneak attack, thanks to Shikamaru's strategizing. Sasuke, however, didn't agree and walked right into the cave. The teams expressed their annoyance but followed along.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke had known Kabuto better than the rest of them and knew that a sneak attack would be useless against Kabuto. Kabuto spotted Sasuke and smiled. Sasuke caught a glance of how Kabuto looked. Kabuto looked like a copy of a more snake like version of Orochimaru. </p><p> </p><p>"It's been a while, Sasuke." Sasuke hn'ed. "Get into formation," Sasuke yelled to his team. They got into formation and attacked. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke went first and ran to Kabuto's front. Suigetsu ran behind Kabuto Karin ran to the left of Kabuto, and Jugo ran to his right. They trapped him and at Sasuke's word, they ran at Kabuto to attack him simultaneously. Sasuke had no choice but to activate his Sharingan. He wanted to get this over as fast as possible. </p><p> </p><p>Dust filled the cave after their attacks and Kabuto disappeared with the dust, then reappeared behind Suigetsu. Suigetsu swung his sword at him but was too slow. Kabuto Dodge and kicked Kabuto in the chest. Suigetsu flung at Sasuke and Sasuke prepared for his landing, ready to stop his fall.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke caught Suigetsu and was pushed backwards by the force. After setting Suigetsu down, he looked up at Kabuto and decided to attack him one on one. "Sasuke! Stop!" Said Kakashi. Sasuke ignored him and went after Kabuto anyway. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke took out his sword and grusomely beheaded the man. Blood spurted from the stump of his neck. Sasuke thought for sure it was a shadow clone bit it never poofed out of existence. Sasuke jumped back, confused. A laugh came from behind him.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke turned around quickly. There, Kabuto was laughing loudly. Sasuke looked back to find the body of who he thought was Kabuto. There was still a dead body there. Sasuke was confused. Who had he killed? Kabuto laughed even harder. The corpse had the physique of a female. Sasuke looked for the head and when he found out who the head belonged to, a great feeling of tragedy and horror overcame him.</p><p> </p><p>It was his mom.</p><p> </p><p>When Kabuto saw the realization in Sasuke's face, he laughed even harder if that was possible. Sasuke didn't know why - he was even horrified by it himself - but laughter filled his own throat. He fell to the ground feeling completely unstable. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke tried to stop himself from laughing. He made choked noises in doing so and tears ran down his face. He could no longer hold his laughter and laughed loudly over the body of his decapitated, loving mother. Sasuke thought of all of the painful, great memories he had with his mother and laughed at each and every one. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke remembered his mom telling him his dead cared about him and he laughed. It was just so funny. And he was confused. He remembered his mom putting bandaged on him when he got hurt during training and laughed. Sasuke looked at his poor mother's severed head and laughed even harder than he ever had before. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke laid with his back to the floor and put his hands over his lungs, gasping for air. His lungs were starting to hurt painfully. He thought about how much he loves his mother and laughed. It was funny how much he loved his mother, for some reason. </p><p> </p><p>The teams looked at Sasuke, feeling nervous and worried. Sasuke was so mentally unstable. What was wrong with him? Why was he like that? They just wanted it to stop. His insane laughter was making the situation even more horrifying which was causing it to be even more traumatic.</p><p> </p><p>Kabuto finished laughing. Kabuto's laughter was different than Sasuke's. Kabuto's laughter was an amused kind of laughter while Sasuke's was the kind that only a broken person could make. "I knew you were amusing but I didn't expect this," said Kabuto. "You've gone completely insane. When this is all over and I've taken over the world, I'm going to experiment on you." </p><p> </p><p>When Sasuke finished laughing, he started to cry. He was left with complete sadness on the inside. Naruto clenched his fists. Seeing Sasuke in pain was painful for him too. It was clear to anyone that Sasuke was losing it and after witnessing Sasuke's insanity, he came to the realization that those who were insane were also tragically broken.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuketook his mother's head in his hands and cradled it through his tears.</p><p> </p><p>When Sasuke finished crying, he felt empty on the inside. It was a numb kind of emptiness. The kind that made you not care whether you lived or died. The kind that made you walk through the cruel world and stand alone through it all because there was a barrier. A wall that was between him and the rest of the world. And that wall was depression. </p><p> </p><p>Depression put a wall between him and others because he felt no one could possibly understand. Sasuke looked down. His mother's head stared right back at him. But he no longer cared. Because he was numb. Sasuke got up. The room looked so different. Colorless. The only color that existed was red. </p><p> </p><p>Red was sticky from his mother's head and body. As numb as Sasuke was, he knew he wouldn't be later. So, in a last insane action, Sasuke took his mother's head and put it in his bag. The teams watched in the kind of terror one could do nothing about. All they could do was watch.</p><p> </p><p>Sakura finally broke and cried loudly. Hinata herself was a sensitive person and broke into tears silently. The rest of the group watched in silent horror.</p><p> </p><p>Kabuto laughed one last time. Sasuke hated that Kabuto got the last laugh, even if only literally. Sasuke saw metaphorically to be just as important as literally. Then, in front of everyone, Kabuto used a teleportation jutsu. Everyone was so focused on Sasuke that they noticed too late. </p><p> </p><p>"I saw what I wanted to see. Now I'm leaving," Kabuto had said. Sasuke was broken once more and Kabuto was gone. The worst part was that there was nothing they could do about either of the problems. Sasuke walked by the group slowly and then quickly. And he left first. The group hesitantly left after him.</p><p> </p><p>They were so mentally tired that they  didn't object to going home, even though the mission was a fail. The group was definitely not excited to write the details of what happened in the report they would need to make.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Nothing To Live For</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Trigger Warning: self-harm, suicide</p><p>Sasuke thought about how miserable life was. He honestly had nothing to live for. The only thing he lived for was revenge. Sasuke began to genuinely consider death. The voices certainly didn't help any as they began to point out reasons he should die.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sasuke, Team Taka, and Kakashi went straight home after the report. Sasuke's team kept a distance from Sasuke after what happened in the cave. Kakashi, on the other hand, wanted to talk to him but Sasuke ignored him and went to his room.</p><p> </p><p>In his room, Sasuke sat on his bed, feeling numb. He took his mother's head out of his bag and looked at it. The head was heavier than he would've thought a head would weigh. Maybe it was her long hair. Sasuke looked into the dead eyes. Sasuke felt a frustration grow inside him. </p><p> </p><p>Even though he had his mother's head, it was different than if she were to be alive. The head didn't look back at him, speak, or show expressions. Most of all: the head couldn't care back. The head was a corpse in both the literal and the philosophical. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke frowned and tried thinking of a solution. He craved some sort of care from the head, wishing it was his mother, even though it was his mother. He had a hard time believing it was her. He was halfway convinced it was just a doll. But the smell of death was unmistakable.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke felt like he had a sort of duty as a son to keep her head. It was a respect thing. Just burying his mother underground was different than his mother being with him, dead or not. Leaving the body there felt disrespectful. He didn't want to cast his poor mother away, letting nature eat her. He didn't want to turn his mother into ashes because he didn't want to burn her. </p><p> </p><p>So Sasuke saw taking her head home as the only respectful thing to do with her. Sasuke set her head on the table next to his bed and lay down. After what happened, the shadows had gotten worse. It was almost to the point that they were tormenting him.</p><p> </p><p>The shadows whispered terrible thing to Sasuke that he wanted to ignore. "You killed your mother." "You're a murderer." "You deserve to die." Sasuke felt absolutely terrible. Sasuke felt so terrible that he fell into a depression that made him bedridden for days on end.</p><p> </p><p> Kakashi went into his room to check on him and to attempt to dispose of the head but Sasuke wouldn't let him get anywhere near her. Kakashi sighed. Maybe Sasuke needed some more time to let go. After several attempts over the next few days, Kakashi have up. Sasuke seemed so serious about it that he was certain a fight would ensue if he continued to try disposing of the head.</p><p> </p><p>The voices kept bothering Sasuke. "Kill yourself. You deserve it." "Die!" </p><p> </p><p>The third day, things got much worse. "Sasuke.." came a voice next to him. Sasuke ignored it and its familiarity at first but then it got louder. "Sasuke Uchiha!" Sasuke definitely recognized the voice. Scared to look, Sasuke turned over ever so slowly. </p><p> </p><p>Then, Sasuke came face to face with his mother's decomposing head. His mother's lips moved. "Sasuke. You did this to me!" The voice of his mother gasped out. Sasuke yelped in horror and for the first time in day, he got up from his bed. Oh no, thought Sasuke; she's haunting me because I killed her.</p><p> </p><p> Sasuke didn't know what to do. But, then, she said something. Something that made him think. "Join me." The voice that was once threatening was now one of sadness. Sasuke's eyes saddened too. "I miss you, Sasuke. Join me."</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke thought about how miserable life was. He honestly had nothing to live for. The only thing he lived for was revenge. Sasuke began to genuinely consider death. The voices certainly didn't help any as they began to point out reasons he should die. </p><p> </p><p>"Remember when Orochimaru forced you to watch that one child be tortured and die?" Sasuke didn't know which incident the voice was talking about; that had happened multiple times. "You should die because you did nothing about it."</p><p> </p><p>"Everyone who used to be your friends decided to kill you so there wouldn't be a war. Maybe you should do them a favor and kill yourself instead." Sasuke couldn't disagree. The voices gave him reasons to die for three hours straight before Sasuke was feeling very depressed and very suicidal.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke took out a shuriken and stared at it for a while. He decided to test out the sharpness of the blade by testing it out on his left arm. He cut himself shallow and then deeper until he felt comfortable with the sharpness of the blade. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke took the shuriken and pressed it to his neck lightly. He tuned the voices out and thought about everything terrible in life. Nothing honestly seemed worth it to live for. His entire family was dead. His entire family. He had a whole clan waiting for him in the afterlife. </p><p> </p><p>Al Sasuke had down on Earth was people who were either using him or who wanted to kill him. Sasuke had no one. Sasuke thought about his team. Suigetsu was using him to get Kisame's sword, Karin had business elsewhere, and Jugo was using him so that he wouldn't turn into a monster uncontrollably. Sasuke had no one who genuinely cared.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke closed his eyes and braced himself. He would get this over quickly. He repositioned the shuriken until it was at a comfortable position. Then, he dug it into his neck as deep as he could and slid it slowly. Sasuke's hand was sweaty and shook from the adrenaline and pain while he clenched his other fist. </p><p> </p><p>Blood came from the wound right away. Sasuke finished the cut and hoped that would be enough. He clearly hadn't cut his jugular because he wasn't dead within seconds. Sasuke waited as his blood flowed down his neck. The blood wasn't flowing fast enough and he was scared the blood would clot.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke hurried to the bathroom, turned the bath water on, and plugged the tub. It was hard for wounds to clog in water as water washed to blood clots away. Sasuke jumped into the bath with his clothes on and had to reopen the now scabbing wound so that it would bleed in the water. </p><p> </p><p>Twenty minutes into the bath, Sasuke started feeling lightheaded and the bath water was a reddish pink. Then, he was feeling thirsty. After that, a headache came on along with dizziness. Sasuke started fading in and out of consciousness until he stopped waking up.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Shower</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>There was no noise at all. Not a single movement. Suigetsu rattled the locked door. The door didn't budge. Everyone quickly caught on that there was something wrong. Kakashi was the first to assume a suicide attempt though. Suigetsu grabbed his sword from his room and quickly ran to the door, ready to knock it down.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Suigetsu was wanting to take a shower. Unfortunately, there was only one shower in the house and two rooms. Sasuke took the one room and Suigetsu, Karin, and Jugo slept in the other.</p><p> </p><p> Suigetsu was originally annoyed with this arrangement but as Sasuke was started to talk to the air and fought with invisible creatures, he became glad to be in a separate room. Grateful, even. But regardless of all of that, Suigetsu still wanted to take a shower. And Sasuke was in there. </p><p> </p><p>Suigetsu was patient. In fact, he sat there for 10 minutes after knocking on the door. He thought Sasuke was merely annoying when he got no answer after knocking. When the 10 minutes was up, Suigetsu decided there was something wrong. Sasuke wasn't the type to take long showers.</p><p> </p><p>That was when he realized something: the water wasn't running. Then, Suigetsu felt dumb. Obviously, Sasuke was taking a bath. That must've been why he was taking so long. Now he needed to make a decision. Would he knock on the door again and risk pissing Sasuke off or would he leave the guy alone?</p><p> </p><p>Suigetsu, feeling dirty after five minutes more, got up and decided to knock on the door once again. When Sasuke didn't answer a second time, Suigetsu started to get worried (although he'd never admit it.) "Sasuke?" Asked Suigetsu.</p><p> </p><p>There was no noise at all. Not a single movement. Suigetsu rattled the locked door. The door didn't budge. Everyone quickly caught on that there was something wrong. Kakashi was the first to assume a suicide attempt though. Suigetsu grabbed his sword from his room and quickly ran to the door, ready to knock it down.</p><p> </p><p>It took one swipe of Suigetsu's sword to knock the door down. Karin, Jugo, and Karin stood by the door. The first Suigetsu noticed was the pinkish red water. The next thing he noticed was Sasuke's pale face. Sasuke was relaxed which meant there was no struggle. Suigetsu didn't know why he didn't think of it sooner but there was no doubt. </p><p> </p><p>The group's faces turned deeply grim.</p><p> </p><p>They didn't need to see Sasuke's neck and arm to know it was a suicide attempt. But regardless of needs, they had to see Sasuke's neck and arm anyway so that they could pull him out of the bath. The few cuts on Sasuke's arm were mostly not deep. </p><p> </p><p>What was worrisome was the fact that he went in the water with open wounds.</p><p> </p><p>Kakashi checked Sasuke's pulse. Just as he'd thought; Sasuke was alive but barely. "He's still alive." The group looked relieved. Karin quickly got bandages and wrapped them around Sasuke's neck and arm. "I'll carry him," said Jugo. They put Sasuke on Jugo's back and ran to the hospital with him.</p><p> </p><p>The hospital got Sasuke to an emergency room immediately. Kakashi and Team Taka waited in the waiting room.</p><p> </p><p>Suigetsu looked down at his hands that were covered in blood. Poor Jugo had it the worst. His entire back was soaked with Sasuke's blood. Suigetsu would swear that he didn't care about his teammates but he himself felt rather down.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe his mother's death hit him deeper than they thought. Karin was the first to speak. "This is out faults. We, as his teammates, should've known." Suigetsu thought about it. "Yeah, but that guy's been so unpredictable lately." Karin gave Suigetsu a cold look. "So are you saying it's his own fault that he tried to kill himself? If you don't care about Sasuke, then just leave!" </p><p> </p><p>Suigetsu was annoyed by that. "No. I have my own reasons for staying with him. I have just as much a right to be with him as you." Fighting was their way of getting their angst out. In the end, they all hoped Sasuke would be okay. </p><p> </p><p>Tsunade called for Kakashi and Kakashi was off. Kakashi didn't want to lose his student. He only wanted a happy life for his team. Flashbacks of his father whom he lost to suicide flashed through Kakashi's mind. He didn't want something like that to happen again. Although it was likely Sasuke would survive, who was to say he wouldn't try again?</p><p> </p><p>Kakashi got to Tsunade's office. "Kakashi," Tsunade addressed. "I know about what happened with Sasuke. Do you think you're fit for a mission?" It was on the contrary, actually. Going on a mission would get his mind off things. So he nodded. </p><p> </p><p>"Very well. There's a mission for you, Naruto, Sakura, Hinata, Shino, Kiba, and Shikamaru once again. The mission is to get Intel on the enemy. This time, you won't have to find Kabuto directly. Your mission is to find Intel and that's all. Sasuke's team was going to be sent too but as Sasuke's out of it, I doubt they'll want to join."</p><p> </p><p>Kakashi thought about the team. She was probably right. But after spending days with the team, he thought it might be good to get at least Suigetsu out. Suigetsu loved fighting and depended on it like a vampire. He needed to fight to survive.</p><p> </p><p>"I'll see if they'll come with me." Tsunade nodded and fell silent. "Kakashi. Sasuke will be okay. I'll personally see to it." Kakashi nodded once. "I leave him to you." Tsunade nodded. "You're dismissed. If you're out for long, I'll a hawk to tell you when he's awake." </p><p> </p><p>"Thank you," Kakashi said in a serious tone. "I'll be going now." Kakashi went to find Sasuke's team where he left them. He wasn't sure if Karin would want to go. She was infatuated with Sasuke and might not want to leave his side.</p><p> </p><p>Kakashi reached the tense group. Suigetsu and, surprisingly, Jugo and Karin wanted to go. Maybe they wanted to get their angst out. Kakashi told them what Tsunade told him. On the way to meet everyone else, Suigetsu and Karin spoke.</p><p> </p><p>"Y'know, Karin; I'm surprised you're not staying by Sasuke's side. Karin had a dark look on her face. "I'm only going because I know Sasuke would look down on me for staying by his side when I could be helping instead." Suigetsu had nothing to say for once. Soon, they were met with the rest of the team. </p><p> </p><p>Naruto was pumped to go on a mission but then he realized Sasuke's team was there without him. He didn't assume anything bad right away. Actually, he was ready to tease Sasuke for being late. But the grim faces of his teammates told him something was wrong. "Why're you guys so down?" </p><p> </p><p>Shikamaru gave a grim look. He figured it had something to do with Sasuke. Shikamaru had the choice to pretend nothing had happened or to let Naruto know something bad happened to Sasuke. He chose the latter. It was inevitable that Naruto would find out. Naruto would only be that much more upset if he found out everyone was lying to him about it.</p><p> </p><p>Jugo, who was usually calm and silent, answered first. "Sasuke tried to kill himself. He's in the hospital right now."</p><p> </p><p>Suigetsu sighed darkly. All he'd wanted was a shower.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. No Longer Shadows</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Naruto is upset about Sasuke's suicide attempt and the shadows are no longer shadows.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was a tenseness in the air. Naruto's eyes dimmed and he hung his head. Then, with a last bit of hope and energy, he asked, "is he okay?" Kakashi nodded. The tenseness in the air relaxed dramatically. "Well. Then let's go visit him."</p><p> </p><p>Naruto started marching towards the hospital before Kakashi stopped him. "Naruto. I know how much you care about Sasuke but we were given orders." Naruto jumped away from Kakashi angrily and got in a defensive position. "Are you saying this mission is more important than Sasuke?!" </p><p> </p><p>Kakashi looked stressed. "Naruto. Sasuke's going to be okay. I already told you that. Right now, finding Intel on the enemy is more important than visiting Sasuke who is okay and  isn't even awake yet." Naruto didn't seem to understand. "So you are saying the mission is more important, you bastard!"</p><p> </p><p>Kakashi tried thinking of a way to explain it to where Naruto would understand. "Listen. What's more important: visiting your friend in the hospital or getting Intel on the enemy to prevent the death of all of your friends?"</p><p> </p><p>Naruto's eyes widened in understanding. Then, he clenched his fists out of despair. "That's not fair. I just - I just don't want Sasuke to wake up in the hospital all alone." Naruto remembered all of those times that he'd gotten hurt and woken up in the hospital with no one there to comfort him.</p><p> </p><p>Kakashi put his hand on Naruto's shoulder and smiled. "If we get Intel on our enemy fast, we might be able to get to the hospital on time. "Really?" Asked Naruto. Kakashi nodded. "Well, then what're we waiting for? Let's go." Kakashi was glad to see Naruto hyped regardless of the condition of his friend. </p><p> </p><p>Sakura herself was extremely hurt by the news of Sasuke's suicide attempt. She wanted to cry but she was holding her tears for Naruto. She didn't want Naruto to think it was his duty to help her.</p><p> </p><p>"Before going, we need to think of a strategy." Kakashi gestured to Shikamaru. Shikamaru acknowledged him and explained his plan. When they finished deciding everything, they were off.</p><p> </p><p>There was a beeping sound. Then groggy memories of what had happened. After that, Sasuke's emotions kicked in. When his emotions kicked in, he opened his eyes in alarm and looked around the hospital room. There were several creatures and ghosts of dead people . But most importantly:</p><p> </p><p>He was alive.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke felt confusion, anger, disappointment, and adrenaline all at once. He clearly didn't try to kill himself well enough. Sasuke looked at the creatures and dead people numbly. They were no longer shadows. He went back to sleep.</p><p> </p><p>When Sasuke woke up a second time, Naruto, Sakura and Karin were waiting for him. Or at least he thought they were; he hoped he wasn't just seeing things. Naruto noticed Sasuke was awake. "Sasuke. Why?" Sasuke looked at Naruto, annoyed, and stubbornly looked away, arms crossed.</p><p> </p><p>"Sasuke. Come on. How am I supposed to help you if you don't tell me anything?" Sasuke wasn't sure what it was. Maybe he just needed to get his angst out or maybe Naruto just annoyed him sometimes but he blew up. "I never asked for your help, Naruto. You're always trying to 'fix' people but you can't fix everyone. Most of all, I don't even want you ludicrous help." </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke glared at Naruto and fully expected him to get upset. Maybe that's what Sasuke wanted. Maybe he wanted everyone to hate him so he had a reason to try to kill himself (and succeed) again. But Naruto didn't get upset. Of course he didn't. Instead, Naruto smiled. </p><p> </p><p>"I'm glad you still have an attitude. That means you're alive." Sasuke didn't know what he meant by that and didn't bother to question it. Naruto's face turned serious again and Sakura stood next to Naruto. "Listen, Sasuke," she started. "We still care about you even if you hate us. What Naruto's trying to say," she gave Naruto a pointed look, "is that we feel we have the right to know what's going on." </p><p> </p><p>Karin stood back and let Sasuke's former teammates talk to him. She listened in on the conversation. There were some things she wanted to say to Sasuke but she could wait until he got home.  </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke thought about it. If he ignored them, they'd continue bothering him about it. If he told them, they'd try to find some way to "cure" him. Either way, it would be an inconvenience. Not only that but they wouldn't understand.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke felt like all of the energy was taken from him and laid on his side. "None of your business," he eventually said. Naruto made a sound of something like disbelief but didn't say anything. Sasuke knew this wasn't over but he could at least relish in the peace he had for now. </p><p> </p><p>A nurse came in to shoo the three visitors out. "Are you feeling better?" "Yeah," said Sasuke. He just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. The second the nurse left his room, he got up, removed all of the tubes and needles, and jumped out the window. Sasuke was glad to be out of there. He hated feeling tied down and hopeless. </p><p> </p><p>When Sasuke ran to the house, he spotted Kakashi standing against the door with his arms crossed. "You're supposed to be at the hospital.' Sasuke glared at him and pushed past him to get inside the house. Kakashi followed Sasuke all the way to his room but Sasuke refused to give in. He laid on his bed, ignoring both Kakashi and the monsters in his head. </p><p> </p><p>That proved to be difficult, however, as one of the monsters shifted into Kakashi. "Sasuke," said one Kakashi. "I'm glad you're home." "I'm disappointed in you," said the other at the same time. Sasuke thought as logically as he could and decided that Kakashi would logically be disappointed in him for many reasons so he decided that the one who said he was disappointed was the real one.</p><p> </p><p>They both got up and left. Sasuke laid on his side and stared at his poor mother's head. In the end, it didn't matter what Kakashi thought. Sasuke would probably end up having to kill him someday anyway. Then, he went to sleep.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Teeth</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>That was when Sasuke stopped digging his teeth even deeper. But not because he was in his right mind. Rather, it was because a smile came to his face. He didn't know why but his confusion made his smile grow even wider.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sasuke opened his eyes. Not because he wanted to but because they wanted him to. They wouldn't stop screaming in his ears high pitched screams (how could no one else hear them?) and they kept scratching at his skin. Sasuke looked to his mother's head for advice but she wasn't speaking to him. Maybe she was mad he was still alive.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke had a hard time telling who was who. There was his mother's head but there was also his mother whose head was attached and was standing next to Sasuke's bed. Sasuke didn't know who to trust. One of the voices - one that belonged to a tough man with a crow's head and bloody eye sockets - wouldn't stop cawing loudly. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke just wanted to kill the bird and eat it for breakfast but was that cannibalism because he had a human body? That was when Sasuke decided he was hungry. But he couldn't get the strange thought of eating the bird out of his head. He just wanted to eat a crow. Was there anything wrong with that?</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke felt his mind go blank and held his head in his hands. He felt like there was something wrong with his thinking but couldn't grasp what it was. Sasuke got up before he continued thinking about eating the man's crow head and went to the kitchen. Kakashi was cooking food and Sasuke told himself that the only reason he thought of eating the crow head was due to a mix of being tired and hungry.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke sat at the dining table and started to feel down. He scratched the wounds on his left wrist under the table. He scratched and scratched until the wounds opened up again and blood was crusted beneath his fingernails.</p><p> </p><p>"Sasuke," whispered the darker version of himself. "Dig deeper. Dig your nails into your skin until you see your veins." Sasuke couldn't see why not. But Kakashi distracted him with the food before he could comply with what the other Sasuke wanted. Sasuke decided to wait until later.</p><p> </p><p>When they finished eating and Sasuke went back to his room, he just wanted to dig his nails into his skin. "Bite your hand to the bone." Sasuke suddenly had an urge to bite himself. He undid the bandages on his wrists and tore at the lacerations. </p><p> </p><p>Blood poured and Sasuke licked at the wounds. The urge to bite at the wounds grew larger and he gave in. Sasuke took the skin between lacerations between his teeth. He felt his teeth dig underneath his skin and tore at it. </p><p> </p><p>The lacerations that were once two separate wounds were now one large wound. Blood dripped from Sasuke's mouth but he didn't stop there. Couldn't stop there. He kept painfully digging his teeth into the white, fatty tissue until he grabbed a vein between his teeth.</p><p> </p><p>That was when Sasuke stopped digging his teeth even deeper. But not because he was in his right mind. Rather, it was because a smile came to his face. He didn't know why but his confusion made his smile grow even wider. Sasuke's teeth were a pinkish red from the blood mixed with saliva. </p><p> </p><p>A laugh got caught in Sasuke's throat which was just hilarious. Sasuke laughed and laughed. At first, he tried muffling it by putting a pillow to his mouth. But then, he decided he wanted the world to know how happy he was and put the pillow down.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke's teammates and Kakashi heard Sasuke laughing. It was strange. His teammates had never heard Sasuke laugh until recently. Laughing in Sasuke's case meant one of two things: Either he was genuinely happy somehow or he was crazy. Sasuke's teammates were almost 100% certain Sasuke no longer had the ability to be happy which meant it was the second and more likely reason; he was crazy.</p><p> </p><p>Suigetsu was the first to speak. "I call dibs on not checking on Sasuke." Karin looked sad. Kakashi knew she liked Sasuke. Seeing him in so much pain probably wasn't easy. As much as Suigetsu would deny it, seeing Sasuke so broken was probably a hit to the face. He had respect for Sasuke, after all. Jugo himself seemed obviously worried.</p><p> </p><p>But then again, seeing Sasuke's insanity was uncomfortable for even Shikamaru. It was something that wasn't easy on anyone. Kakashi decided to leave Sasuke alone in thinking that he was having a mental breakdown, in which case, help wouldn't do anything except be unhelpful.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke was glad when no one came in to check on him. He didn't care about those people. He didn't want them to invade his personal privacy. Something in the back of his head was screaming at him that his thinking was wrong but at the same time, the voices told him he was in the right. </p><p> </p><p>The voices said that everyone else should die. That Sasuke's privacy was his own and those who decided to trespass it were enemies and were people who were out to get him. The creatures told Sasuke that he was just like them. A monster. That everyone hated him because of it.</p><p> </p><p>And Sasuke was fine with that. (They were all going to die someday anyways.)</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke felt a presence and sat up only to be face to face with Madara. "We need to talk." Sasuke giggled. "Why not?"</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Extinction</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>"You killed me but it wasn't evil. It was merciful. Look around you, Sasuke. The Leaf ninja are miserable. Naruto and Sakura look sad, Kakashi looks as if he's aged twice as many years, and the rest of your friends have seen things no human should have to see."</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Sorry for the late chapter release.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The two hopped out Sasuke's window and Sasuke followed Madara to the same spot in the forest that they'd met previously. "While you were out," Madara started after making sure they weren't followed, "the Leaf found crucial information as to where Kabuto's whereabouts are." </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke's eyes widened. "As such, our time in the Leaf will end soon." Sasuke didn't know why but he no longer found everything funny. Instead, he felt like he was hit in the face with reality. The reality that he wasn't actually back in the Leaf for good. His mind must've been tricked into thinking so while he was there. His mind couldn't differentiate "home" from "Leaf Village."</p><p> </p><p>And Sasuke hated it. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke needed a beatdown. What was wrong with him? His plan to kill the Elders and therefore his old comrades was still in his head. How did he plan on wanting to stick around while destroying the Village at the same time?</p><p> </p><p>"But you can care while killing them at the same time." A deep voice that sounded like Itachi's responded to Sasuke's thoughts. "What?" Sasuke asked, forgetting Madara was there and cringing in response. But Madara didn't seem confused in the slightest. Sasuke turned to his right and saw Itachi standing there.</p><p> </p><p>Was it really his brother? Sasuke knew Kabuto was bringing the dead back to life. "Itachi..." Sasuke trailed off and walked towards him. Madara watched on. Sasuke decided that if Itachi wasn't there, Madara would've told him. Itachi looked Sasuke in the eye and smiled. "Yes. It's me, Sasuke."</p><p> </p><p>"What were you talking about when you said you can care and kill about someone at the same time?" Itachi put his index and middle finger to Sasuke's forehead. Sasuke refused to be ignored like this, after everything he'd been through. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke was such a confused and hurt person. The last thing he needed was to be treated as a child. "Itachi. Why don't you answer me? I'm your own brother but you've concealed the truth from me as if I was a stranger." Itachi gave Sasuke the same sad, guilty look he'd give Sasuke when he'd ignore him when they were younger.</p><p> </p><p>Then, Itachi's face turned serious.</p><p> </p><p>"Look, Sasuke. You killed me but it wasn't evil. It was merciful. Look around you, Sasuke. The Leaf ninja are miserable. Naruto and Sakura look sad, Kakashi looks as if he's aged twice as many years, and the rest of your friends have seen things no human should have to see."</p><p> </p><p>The tired faces of his old comrades flashed through Sasuke's head. "There's something called a mercy killing, Sasuke. Take them out of their misery." Itachi was right. The Leaf ninja were miserable. Sasuke closed his eyes. </p><p> </p><p>The only way to make humans stop being miserable was by making them no longer human and the only way to do that was through death. Sasuke himself was a miserable person. He knew how miserable life was. He'd had plenty times where he just wanted to die. Life was miserable for everyone.</p><p> </p><p>But, before deciding anything with clarity, Sasuke needed more answers. He needed to make sure that death was the only way. He'd already decided that killing the elders of the Leaf was the only way to carry through vengeance for his brother.</p><p> </p><p>But killing everyone in the world? That sounded extreme. What if everyone wasn't miserable? What if only certain people were miserable? Sasuke needed to make sure humans were truly a miserable race before ending the entire race himself. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke had plans for dark things like murder and he had prepared himself to kill his own past comrades for his goal but killing the entire world was something that was truly dark. He needed to observe the pain in the people around him before making his decision. Sasuke opened his eyes again. </p><p> </p><p>Itachi was gone.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke felt alarmed and looked around quickly. How did he not notice Itachi leaving? Why didn't he say goodbye? Sasuke looked to Madara. "Where did he go?" Madara simply stared at Sasuke, saying nothing. "Sasuke." Madara continued the conversation from earlier. </p><p> </p><p>"Over the next week, we will be fighting our way to Kabuto's hideout. Then, he will die. The second we part ways with the Leaf from the hideout, we will part ways with the Leaf. At that point, the deal will be completely demolished and we will be enemies again." </p><p> </p><p>This was happening so fast. It made Sasuke laugh. Madara ignored Sasuke's insane laugh and continued. "From there, we will discuss our exact plans to kill the Leaf Elders. Then, we attack." Sasuke stopped his laughter and he was able to compose himself. He wasn't even sure whether laughing randomly was a normal thing or not anymore.</p><p> </p><p>"That is all." And Madara disappeared from feet up to the fingertips of his left hand. Sasuke started walking home, left in his own thoughts. He ran into a snake on the way there which, very unfortunately,  gave him flashbacks. </p><p> </p><p>One particular flashback was when he refused to kneel to Orochimaru whenever he approached him. Orochimaru taught Sasuke that the only people who got away with being prideful were those who were strongest. Sasuke learned that no amount pride was worth it for the amount of pain suffered from  pissing off Orochimaru.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke got to the house and jumped through his window as quietly as possible and laid down to go to sleep, not bothering to change clothes.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke woke up the next day with the goal to find happiness in others. He decided that if half of the humans that were young adults to seniors were happy, he wouldn't need to erase humans. </p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile, Madara was in a good mood. Sasuke was losing it but it made him easier to manipulate. He originally thought Sasuke's insanity would be a problem but that was proven wrong. All he cared about was that Sasuke's goals went along with the Akatsuki's. </p><p> </p><p>Madara didn't even care about Sasuke's state of mind. He just needed Sasuke for his eyes. Sasuke could think he was God himself for all he cared. Madara just needed Sasuke to be able to fight. The Akatsuki had captured almost all of the Tailed Beasts. The time was near.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. The Search For Happiness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sasuke's goal to find happiness in others meant interacting with other people. Sasuke would've sent one of his teammates out to investigate peoples' happiness but he needed to make this decision himself which meant interacting with others himself.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke first observed the happiness in those who were living with him. Jugo was in pain because Kimimaro died. Suigetsu had trauma from the experiments Orochimaru did on him. Karin was in pain from her past of dealing with people forcefully biting her for her healing powers.</p><p> </p><p>That was three people who were unhappy. </p><p> </p><p>Kakashi also had traumas and never seemed to be the happy type. With his romance novels that he clung to, he didn't have much in life. But the things he did have in life, he appreciated. But appreciation wasn't happiness and Kakashi was truly a miserable man who suffered from traumas as well.</p><p> </p><p>After eating breakfast, Sasuke went out to find Naruto and the others. Naruto held much heavy sadness in him. Without a doubt, he was miserable. </p><p> </p><p>It didn't take long for Sasuke to find the group. They were crowded around Kiba and Naruto who were stupidly fighting, egging Kiba on. Kiba was always unhappy, feeling life was unfair. He was often ignored and pushed to the side. Sasuke ignored the fight and observed the crowd.</p><p> </p><p>"Sasuke," Sakura called, unsure. Sasuke sighed and walked closer to the crowd. Ino and Sakura were constantly competing over who was better. Not only that but Sasuke heard how Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji's teacher was killed by the Akatsuki. That itself must've been traumatic. </p><p> </p><p>Hinata and Neji had to deal with their clan's pressure. Shino was a depressed, quiet person. Rock Lee and TenTen seemed to be the only people of the group who were genuinely happy. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke felt like an idiot. He knew humans were miserable and he didn't expect everyone to be happy. But he expected most people to be happy enough to the point where misery didn't get in the way of their lives. But as Sasuke left the crowd and walked down the street, he saw crowds upon crowds of humans stuck in the black substance called misery and stuck in chains called regret.</p><p> </p><p>The voices in Sasuke's head chanted "Kill them all, kill them all, kill them all." Sasuke wondered if the voices would ever go away. "Look around you," they said. "They deserve to die." Sasuke wouldn't let the voices influence him. Not this time. He continued on his search for happiness. </p><p> </p><p>Children were the most happy. Children were too ignorant to kill. Sasuke felt overwhelmed by the misery of the people. Misery tried grabbing his hand to pull him into its pool, only to be surprised. Sasuke laughed at misery's face. </p><p> </p><p>Misery couldn't shatter him; he was already broken.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke felt a presence running towards him. It must've been Naruto. "Sasuke! Why don't you come with us? We're gonna go kill some of the undead." Sasuke agreed more quickly than Naruto thought he would've. Sasuke thought going would give him a better picture as to whether the shinobi should die or not. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke looked at Naruto and examined him.</p><p> </p><p>Naruto smiled but there was a sadness behind his eyes. He must've been sad that when this was all over, they'd be enemies again. Naruto, always pathetic. But Sasuke had an unwanted fondness for him. As much as he hated it, Naruto was his best friend.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke looked forward again. Naruto noticed that Sasuke didn't explicitly say no which meant.. "You're coming? You're actually coming?" Naruto jumped up, feeling excited. Sasuke didn't know what to do with Naruto's sudden burst of energy. "You idiot." "Hey! Don't call me an idiot, you bastard!" </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke ignored him and a feeling of familiarity passed between the two. Sasuke stared off into space, thinking about the past and, unknowingly, Naruto did the same. It felt just like - "just like the old times," Naruto said aloud. Sasuke remembered his absolute need to get revenge and felt a cold wall suddenly push itself between him and Naruto. </p><p> </p><p>He needed to not get caught up in the rare good times of the past.</p><p> </p><p>No amount of good in the past would make up for the amount of misery Sasuke had felt in his entire lifetime. He needed to have his revenge. Not only for his brother and family but also for himself. He needed to force the village to understand his pain. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke needed to get his stress from his traumas out once and for all so he could move on anew through this revenge. Then, and only then, would he be able to move on. Besides, it wasn't like he'd be disappointing anybody. In fact, he'd just be proving them right.</p><p> </p><p>Everyone was expecting Sasuke to turn on the village once the deal was over with. Sasuke saw the way everyone looked at him. It was as if he was a ticking time bomb. No one trusted him. Not anymore. Not even Kakashi, Sakura, and Naruto.</p><p> </p><p>"Sasuke. I've been calling you for like 15 minutes. Are you okay over there?" Naruto held out 8 fingers, trying to count to 15. Sasuke couldn't help but smirk at Naruto's absolute stupidity. It was the closest thing to laughter he would get. (When was the last time he laughed genuinely and not insanely?) </p><p> </p><p>"Well, come on. What are you waiting for? I'll race you." Naruto ran off and Sasuke followed. Even though Sasuke wasn't intentionally trying to win the race, he still won because Naruto kept bumping into things. </p><p> </p><p>It was clearly a group mission; all of the teams were there, ready to fight for their people. Sasuke's own team was waiting for him. They'd learned to follow Sasuke without question. Clearly, Kakashi had told them Sasuke was coming.</p><p> </p><p>There was a sense of comfort in the fact that his team was there; a feeling of grounding. When humans are thrown into completely unknown situations, they grasp on to anything even the slightest bit familiar to try to understand the situation more. Sasuke and his team were no different; they didn't like the idea of being complete outsiders. As long as the team was there, they belonged. Even if only as the evil ones.</p><p> </p><p>Shikamaru nodded at Sasuke. Sasuke wasn't sure of Shikamaru's intentions so he ignored him for the time being. Everyone hated Sasuke so Shikamaru, the smartest one of them all, suddenly being nice was suspicious. He was clearly getting something out of it.</p><p> </p><p>Kakashi was once again the leader of the mission with Shikamaru being the strategist. The group of teams were on edge because of Sasuke and his team's presence but there was undoubtedly excitement in the air. The groups hadn't had a real fight in a while. Most of their fighting was training. They were pumped to finally be able to beat some zombies to a pulp.</p><p> </p><p>"Kill them," a shadow whispered for the trillionth time that day. Sasuke was so tired of it that he said, "shut up" and didn't care what the others thought. They all probably thought he was insane anyways so who cared what they thought?</p><p> </p><p>The group gave Sasuke an unsure look before Sasuke realized they probably thought he was telling Shikamaru to shut up. Sasuke didn't let himself dwell on it though. They could think that if they wanted to. They already thought he was a terrible person anyway.</p><p> </p><p>Shikamaru finished explaining the plan. It was a simple plan. The only goal was to send as many zombies back to the grave as possible. They'd worry about Kabuto once most and, hopefully all, of his army was gone. "Alright," said Kakashi. "Let's go."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Seen Worse</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The undead shinobi were weaker, mindless versions of themselves but it didn't stop the feeling that crossed Team 7 when they came across Haku and Zabuza. Sasuke stuffed feeling deep inside of him so the feeling wasn't strong. Sakura felt sad and wanted to cry but didn't because she was a shinobi (and shinobi don't cry.) </p><p> </p><p>Kakashi silently watched the flashbacks pass through his mind. If Kakashi were the type to speak his emotions, he'd say, "It's too bad you died. I had a lot of respect for you. Out of respect, I will kill you in the most dignified way." But Kakashi was the type to speak his mind only when he felt the need to or when he got so stuck in his head that he didn't even realize he was speaking. </p><p> </p><p>Naruto felt the painful memories of the past but pushed himself forward. In a way, he was stronger than the rest. Instead of pushing down his feelings or dwelling on them, he accepted them and moved on. Instead of forcing himself not to cry because it was weak, he didn't cry because he was the only one who saw it as a happy moment. </p><p> </p><p>After all, Haku and Zabuza gravitated toward each other even while being mindless zombies.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke wanted to cringe. Naruto may have dealt with it best in the moment but he was still an emotional idiot who would likely cry later when no one was watching. Sasuke wanted absolutely nothing to do with emotions so he jumped forward first, ready to erase the past he had with Haku and Zabuza. </p><p> </p><p>Before anyone could say anything, he dodged the zombies' weak attacks and slit their throats. Their heads weighed heavy on the wound in their throats and their heads slowly fell off, skin and bone ripping apart, trying to keep the heads attached to their bodies.</p><p> </p><p>It was a gruesome sight. Most shinobi preferred killing with not-so-gruesome stab wounds. They'd all seen gruesome sights before but to see their former comrade doing something like that without batting an eye was truly disturbing. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke saw the group looking at him as if he was a stranger. Good, he thought. They finally understood who he really was - a monster. Sasuke flashed back to the horrors he'd seen while being under Orochimaru's wing and looked at the headless bodies unsympathetically. </p><p> </p><p>He'd seen worse. Much worse. Images of twisted limbs and grotesque torsos filled his mind. The Leaf shinobi were weaklings if they thought a headless body was something disturbing to look at. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke pushed forward in annoyance, wanting the weaklings to be just as emotionless as he was. It was the first time in a while that he'd felt the urge to make someone feel absolute utter pain so they'd understand how a simple stab wound is nothing. </p><p> </p><p>The urge to strap the teams down and force them to watch a tough grown man be tortured until he was begging on his knees until they understood what true horror looked like filled his mind. He wanted them to experience what Orochimaru made him experience. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke got his anger out by killing all of the zombies that came up, not leaving any for anyone else to kill. But he didn't care. After a few hours of fighting, Sasuke got tired. The rest of the group was only tired of having to be quick enough to beat Sasuke to a zombie to kill. They were glad when Sasuke got tired; they were finally able to fight.</p><p> </p><p>Shikamaru, being the lazy person he was, sat down next to Sasuke with Jugo. If anyone really knew him, though, they'd know it wasn't because he was lazy but because he saw Sasuke's mental health to be just as important as killing the zombies. Shikamaru sat in a one-sided awkward silence while Sasuke relaxed.</p><p> </p><p>After a few more minutes, Shikamaru sighed and decided it was best to get it over with. One last breath and then, "So, do you hear voices?" Sasuke looked at Shikamaru as if he'd uncovered his secret and was rather unhappy about it too. Shikamaru scratched the back of his head. What a drag. </p><p> </p><p>But it was already said and he couldn't take it back. He needed to follow through with his question. So, he stared at Sasuke, refusing to back down. Sasuke was either tired emotionally,  physically,  or both because he gave in faster than Shikamaru would've guessed. (Another calculation done wrong. That could kill someone someday.)</p><p> </p><p>"There's no point in denying it. Yes, I hear things." But that wasn't all. It was obvious to Shikamaru that Sasuke was seeing things as well. He sighed once again. "You're also seeing things." He decided to get to the point. "Look. First of all, I havent told anyone. Now, importantly, your seeing and hearing things may be able to be fixed." </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke tried to hide his interest and if Shikamaru wasn't as smart as he was, he wouldn't have noticed. "I'm sorry but I can't help you unless you join our side." </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke wanted to scoff. He didn't need the Leafs help. But the temptation to get rid of the voices and demons was getting stronger. He felt himself starting to consider - no, he would ask Madara whether he could help first. Sasuke shook his head, trying to get in his right mind.</p><p> </p><p>Then, a realization hit him: Shikamaru must know his plans. Which would mean he knew about the corruption within the Elders. Why else would he try to get Sasuke on his side? The Elders must've ordered it. What a conniving bastard. </p><p> </p><p>"No."</p><p> </p><p>It was the type of no that said he wouldn't be convinced otherwise. Shikamaru messed up. For the third time that day. He was having a bad day. Sasuke was broken and with broken people, the reasons they broke in the first place hurt them by things that reminded them of why they broke. That was what was called being "triggered." </p><p> </p><p>Shikamaru made the mistake of triggering Sasuke. But he learned something from this. Something important about psychology and Sasuke. The way to get Sasuke to join their side was by getting to the root of the problem. Not by finding a way to get rid if the voices. The voices would be there as long as the problem was there.</p><p> </p><p>But would there be enough time to get to the root of Sasuke's problems?</p><p> </p><p>Shikamaru only hoped. </p><p> </p><p>The rest of the group came back for the night as it was getting dark. Sasuke got up and put his sleeping bag on the ground, ready to sleep. Sakura put her sleeping bag next to his. Sasuke thought about how the day went and his talk with Shikamaru. </p><p> </p><p>Did all of the Leaf know about how terrible the Elders were or was it just Shikamaru? Either way, Shikamaru deserved to die. Not as a mercy kill but because he was a terrible person. "Sasuke?" Came the voice of Sakura. Sasuke narrowed his eyes. He didn't want to talk to her but at the same time, he needed to know if she knew about the Elders too. If she knew, there was no doubt everyone else did.</p><p> </p><p>"Are you awake?" Sakura asked. "Hn." "Wow. I didn't expect you to reply." Sasuke said nothing so she continued. "Do you ever think of us?"  Sasuke didn't know how to answer that. After several seconds of contemplating how to answer, he said nothing. Sakura sighed. "Look. Even after you tried to kill me, Naruto, and Kakashi sensei, I still care about you."</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke didn't want to listen to her love confessions. "Get to the point," said an annoyed goat demon with a rough voice. For once, Sasuke agreed with the creatures. "And, well. You have a home here. I know the others are wary of you but that's because you need to earn their trust back. But you already have a home with Kakashi, Naruto, and, well, me." </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke knew it. He really did. What did he expect, honestly? She was trying to get him to stay. She was probably following what Shikamaru told her to say. In fact, Shikamaru and Kakashi probably came up with the whole plan. Sasuke wa Ted to get out of the filthy, condescending place. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke genuinely thought Sakura, Naruto, and Kakashi still cared about him. Not that he cared whether they cared or not but he hated being betrayed. Why did he even trust humans anymore? Sasuke got up and out of his sleeping bag, ready to fight more zombies. </p><p> </p><p>The quicker the zombies were killed, the sooner he'd get his revenge. As much as he hated the Leaf shinobi for betraying him, it was the Elders' faults. The Elders needed to die. There was no doubt about that. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke was surprised Sakura didn't follow him but didn't pay too much attention to it. (She was probably used to getting hurt by him anyways.) Sasuke fought all night, not stopping even when he felt his legs caving in. By the time morning came, Sasuke was on his knees. He collapsed out of tiredness.</p>
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<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Kindness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A new zombie type pops up and Sasuke gets closer to Shikamaru.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>First of all, sorry for the rather late update. Got a little sidetracked with my other fanfics. When I have writer's block for this one, I write in one of my others and vise versa.</p><p>Not the most interesting chapter. Sorry about that. Unfortunately, details are needed to fill in blanks to the story, even if they are boring. (Although you could probably find plot holes in this story; much like most stories.)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sasuke felt warm. He shifted around a bit before opening his eyes. He was covered in a couple of blankets. Heavy blankets. A shadow was kneeling next to him and touched his forehead. "Sasuke. You're awake." The shadow mimicked Sakura's voice. "I'll go get Kakashi sensei." </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke didn't trust the shadow and looked away while the shadow got up and left. Kakashi entered the tent shortly after the shadow said it would get him. A strange coincidence indeed. Too strange. He eyed Kakashi, unsure whether he should trust him.</p><p> </p><p>Kakashi stepped forward and Sasuke pushed backwards. Kakashi sighed and Sasuke's eyes widened in confusion. "Sasuke," said Kakashi. "I'm not going to hurt you." Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "Then why did you listen to the shadow? You're clearly on the shadows' side." </p><p> </p><p>Kakashi looked deeply distressed. "I don't know what I can do to make you believe me, Sasuke. For now, I'll just report to you everything that's going on." Sasuke said nothing so Kakashi continued. "So far, we estimate that about half of the undead have been killed." </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke's silence continued. "That said, we likely have only two days left before every one of the undead is no longer alive." Sasuke considered the entire situation. If what Kakashi said becomes true, he's real, he thought. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke nodded to himself but Kakashi seemed to think he was missing to him. "Good. You tired yourself out. Have you gotten enough rest?" Sasuke kept talking to himself in his head, deeming this person who was possibly fake as an unnecessary being. Kakashi sighed again, this time from sadness, and left Sasuke to his thoughts.</p><p> </p><p>After a strange hour of talking to himself, Sasuke got up and left the room, ready to fight. No one, including the other older teens, was in sight. "Go on your own then," said a voice. "Yeah," pitched in another, "you don't need help to fight or are you a weakling?"</p><p> </p><p>Although Sasuke loved his brother, he still had PTSD from Itachi calling him weak before using traumatizing genjutsu on him. "I am no weakling. Tell me I am weak again. You will be feasted upon by the black flames of my eyes."  </p><p> </p><p>The voices silenced. Sasuke's mood changed in a heartbeat. Hopefully the voices would be quiet for a while. Unfortunately, life sucked and the universe wanted him to commit suicide because by the time he had killed ten undead shinobi, the voices came back. Except this time, they came from behind him. He turned around, ready to stab the air only to be met with the loud voices of the teams he travelled with. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke kneeled on the ground. The voices were so loud, it was almost like they were scratching his ears out until they bled. "Shut up," he told them. Everyone looked at him, both upset by his harshness and puzzled at the same time. </p><p> </p><p>"Shut up," he repeated. His eyes were shut from agony. "Hey! We're not saying anything, ya bastard!" Naruto's voice was so loud, he couldn't even describe the pain that came from it. There was a gasp and then - "his ears are bleeding!" "Naruto. He asked you to be quiet." "Shut up. Talking will only make it worse."</p><p> </p><p>Except they didn't quit talking. They kept arguing and Sasuke couldn't stand it. There were some dark times in his life in which he'd thought if suicide: a couple of times after the massacre, one time when he realized he was going to be stuck with Orochimaru for at least four years, and once after he killed Itachi. </p><p> </p><p>But never in his life had Sasuke thought of suicide from something as simple as pain. The pain was so bad that he started ripping his left arm with his nails in an attempt to distract the pain with other pain. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke kept scratching and scratching until his arm bled everywhere and people held him down. Evil. That's what these people were. They were trying to make him hurt even more by taking away his distraction from pain.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke wanted to die. He wanted to die and he wanted to die. Even though his arms were held down, he was still able to use his fingers. So he dug his nails into his palms as deep as possible. Sasuke opened his eyes for a second only to regret it. </p><p> </p><p>A headache hit and the pain in his ears became even more unbearable as he was able to assign the sounds to people. The last thing he saw was Kakashi's hand before passing out. </p><p> </p><p>When Sasuke woke up from passing out a second time that day, the pain was completely gone. Shikamaru was standing near the door with his arms crossed. "You awake?" Sasuke didn't feel the need to respond. </p><p> </p><p>"Do you know what happened to you?" Sasuke considered listening to his pride by ignoring the guy but curiosity overcame him. He sat up. "Hn," he replied. Shikamaru nodded and walked next to Sasuke's sleeping bag only to sit down cross legged.</p><p> </p><p>"There's either an intelligent undead who was using its powers against you or there's someone with a power to make eardrums blow out badly working on Kabuto's side. If that's the case, there's likely others working with Kabuto as well."</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke thought about it. "I think it's a new type of undead. I didn't sense anyone's presence while I was there." Shikamaru nodded. "That's what I thought too. You're pretty intelligent, Uchiha." Sasuke didn't know what to say about that. He wasn't used to compliments in any way.</p><p> </p><p>His teammates rarely said something kind to each other. Their relationship ran more on respect than actual kindness. If Suigetsu didn't respect Sasuke, there was no doubt he'd be long gone and if Karin hadn't thought he was cool, she'd have been cold towards him and would likely even fight him. </p><p> </p><p>If Jugo hadn't seen Sasuke as the Kimimaro incarnate, he would've stayed locked inside caves and dungeons for the rest of his life, fearing he'd kill everyone. Their team was run on respect; not care, although they cared about each other in their own ways.</p><p> </p><p>So when Shikamaru, someone he wasn't close with complimented him, he felt something. Something he hadn't felt in a long time. It was a warm, fuzzy feeling in his chest. The feeling that someone cared. Sasuke knew that, rationally, he was being ridiculous. After all, why would someone like Shikamaru care? But in the moment, he needed to believe that someone cared. So he did.</p><p> </p><p>"So, now that we have to deal with this new undead type, how many days before we kill them all?" "Two days at the very least."  Sasuke looked at the wall. Two days. Two days left before Kabuto was dead. Two days before he got revenge on the Leaf Village. Two days until havoc was reaked. </p><p> </p><p>Two days.</p><p> </p><p>They continued fighting for the rest of the day while being wary of the new zombie type. This new zombie type was able to bring Sasuke down within a matter of seconds and they had no idea how many the zombies could effect at the same time. They also didn't know how many of them were out there. Most of all, they had no idea how to kill these zombie types. What if they had an invincibility jutsu like Hidan? </p><p> </p><p>When the day was over, they all rested on a cliff that was cleared of the undead and while the adults went to sleep, the older teens looked at the stars. Sasuke rejected the offer to come with his team to look at the stars with them but ultimately decided it would be better to be on lookout while everyone star watched. </p><p> </p><p>But even Sasuke found himself looking at the stars. "Look; it's the milky way," said Suigetsu. "You idiot," said Karin while Sakura gave him an almost disgusted look. Karin punched Suigetsu and Sakura smiled sheepishly as she was reminded of how she acted towards Naruto.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke didn't want to hear the annoying voices of the idiots but ended up relaxing into them. When everyone calmed down, all of the older teens were quietly laying down, looking at the stars peacefully.</p><p> </p><p>Deep thoughts filled their minds and Sasuke broke the silence. "I think death is this peaceful," he said. Everyone was startled from him speaking, including Sasuke himself. He blamed his loose mouth on his messed up state of mind. Clearly, he wouldn't be speaking in the right state if mind.</p><p> </p><p> He took a second to regain his composure from the shock of his own voice before continuing. "I've seen it before, in people's eyes. Fear and confusion as well as pain fills them but there's always that last few seconds before they're dead that they just accept it. And it's a peaceful kind of acceptance. Peaceful like this."</p><p> </p><p>"Did you hear yourself?" yelled one of the voices. "You sounded like such a weakling!" Sasuke ignored the voice. "Sasuke." Sakura hesitated. Then, with a deep breath of courage, she asked the forbidden question.</p><p> </p><p>The question that everyone had decided not to ask through some sort of silent code. </p><p> </p><p>"Why do you hear voices? What happened to you?" Somehow, the peacefulness didn't fade. There was an air of nervousness and curiosity but the peacefulness still stayed. And Sasuke felt like talking for a change. He had never vented in his entire life but on this particular day, he felt like talking.</p><p> </p><p>"Don't get me wrong," said Sasuke. "I won't vent. However, I don't see the reason in keeping quiet either." Sasuke started. "It first happened a few years ago. With Orochimaru. My eyesight had gotten worse after that while I started hearing and seeing things."</p><p> </p><p>But what had happened to trigger these hallucinations? The group silenced completely, so curious for an answer that they were almost desperate.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0018"><h2>18. The Explanation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Trigger Warning for suicide attempt at the end.</p><p>Sasuke talks about his time with Orochimaru.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"It started when I ran away to train under Orochimaru. I saw things. Things I can't explain, things I could explain but it would take long to, and things I could explain but would cause you to throw up."</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke's words didn't surprise the group very much. And although Sasuke knew they truly thought they understood what he was saying, there was no way to ever understand unless you were Orochimaru's favorite. </p><p> </p><p>"I became desensitized to many things while I was training under him. Even though I kept my morals to not kill anyone who was innocent, I still had a hard time caring when someone died in front of me."</p><p> </p><p>It was the tragic truth. Living with a criminal who performed evil experiments on men, women, and children made you stop caring about the lesser things in life. It made you become desensitized to evil things.</p><p> </p><p>"I got so used to the screams I heard every day that it just became background noise." Sasuke remembered the terrible things he'd seen; a man trying to push his intestines back into his body, a woman whose baby was murdered in front of her, a person cut into pieces alive. </p><p> </p><p>He'd seen it all. "Violence no longer bothered me anymore. Naruto," said Sasuke. Naruto looked up. "Yeah? What is it?" Sasuke looked him the eye. "You are a weakling." Naruto clearly wanted to defend himself but Sasuke interrupted him.</p><p> </p><p>"You. All of you. The murder of an innocent person is the worst thing you've ever seen which is why you will never understand. There's so much worse in the world than simple murder and I've seen it with my own eyes."</p><p> </p><p>The group wanted to deny what Sasuke said. That murder was terrible. But then they thought of Orochimaru and how Sasuke was right; they truly hadn't seen much bad in their lives compared to Sasuke. They hadn't seen torture or experiments gone wrong.</p><p> </p><p>They hadn't even seen child murder. At the end of the day, they were innocent compared to Sasuke. But Sasuke wasn't finished. There was more to it than witnessing the torture of others.</p><p> </p><p>He hesitated before deciding to continue. The group felt his hesitation which made them on edge. What was such a bad memory that it made even Sasuke hesitate? "Orochimaru didn't want to scar my body," he started. </p><p> </p><p>The feeling that something bad had happened to Sasuke changed the air if the group and it was like a stone dropped their moods down. What was once fear was now depressed pity. "Orochimaru performed experiments on me as well. He only performed them on me after performing them on others because, like I said, he didn't want to leave any scars. He wanted to make sure they would work."</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke tried remembering everything. His mind had blocked quite a bit of the memories out because of how traumatic they were so he remembered things in different sequences and questioned some of those memories.</p><p> </p><p>Naruto was impatient. He wanted to hear what the hell had happened to his best friend. "What experiments did the bastard do on you?" "Naruto," Sakura reprimanded. "Let him explain when he wants to." Sasuke switched his eyes to Sakura and then looked up at the stars.</p><p> </p><p>"Orochimaru liked to do pain tolerance experiments on me so that my body's pain tolerance would become stronger. He didn't want to have to deal with an average pain tolerance when he took me."</p><p> </p><p>"The bastard," Naruto insulted Orochimaru again. Sasuke ignored him. "These experiments were often injections that mimicked extreme pain without actually scarring or damaging the body in any way. One of the worst experiments Orochimaru liked to perform on me was the feeling of being cut into pieces alive."</p><p> </p><p>Ino and Sakura looked like they were going to be sick while the others' faces paled. Naruto's face quickly darkened though. "If I ever see that snake again, I will kill him." The silence after that was deafening as the group processed what Sasuke had said. </p><p> </p><p>Finally, Shikamaru spoke. "Your hallucinations seem to be caused from reoccurring trauma that your body and mind couldn't deal with." Naruto interrupted. "Sasuke. We're here for you. I'm sorry about what happened and I'm sorry I wasn't there but we're here now and we want to help."</p><p> </p><p>The group seemed to consider that. Then, finally, they slowly all agreed to help Sasuke in any way they could. Sasuke turned away from them. "I don't want, nor do I need, your help." Naruto groaned. "Don't be like that, Sasuke. When we say we're going to help you, we mean it and you can't convince us otherwise."</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke was already starting to regret talking about his past. He got up and left for bed. "Sasuke," Naruto called out. "We're going to help you. Believe it!" Believe it, huh? Sasuke turned around and looked Naruto straight in the eye. "Idiot."</p><p> </p><p>Naruto smiled. And Sasuke went to bed. For the first time in a long time, the voices were quiet.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke woke up the next day feeling terrible. He blamed how terrible he felt on last night. He knew he should've stayed quiet. He knew it. So, why did he do it anyway? Orochimaru had liked to call him a masochist at times. Maybe the man was right.</p><p> </p><p>A person Sasuke had never seen walked in. "Sasuke," said the tall man with black hair and a moustache. "I heard them last night. They were pretending to want to help you and were really planning on killing you." </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke knew it was a hallucination. He knew it. Yet, somehow, the words felt true. He tried closing his eyes for several seconds so that the man would go away but the second he opened them, a whitish yellowish creature with bloody eyes and claws was staring back at him. </p><p> </p><p>He jumped up and away from the creature, ready to fight the horrifying mass. Sasuke's door opened and he looked at the entryway, then quickly at the monster, then back to the entryway. It was 3AM by the position of the moon and no one was there at the entryway. </p><p> </p><p>Someone - or something - had opened his door. Sasuke didn't know what to do. His team was sleeping in the same tent as him and he didn't want to wake them to ask what was going on. Sweat fell down his face and he looked around the room, attempting to find what had opened the damn door.</p><p> </p><p>Until, finally, Sasuke noticed something. There was a ghost that looked like Itachi with its back faced to him and something in him knew he had to follow it. So he did. He followed the ghost outside.</p><p> </p><p>Apparently, the group had fallen asleep at the edge of the cliff because they were all still there, laying down with their eyes closed. Sasuke followed the ghost until it walked to the edge of the cliff. </p><p> </p><p>He wasn't sure what the ghost wanted him to do until it turned around and flew off the cliff and rested in the air a few feet above him. It was definitely Itachi. His brother's sad eyes stared at him and he knew what he wanted him to do.</p><p> </p><p>"Freedom," said Itachi, "is only met with death." It wasn't a hard choice for some reason. It probably should've been but it wasn't. Maybe it was because he was delusional and maybe he wanted to die but Sasuke had little to no qualms about jumping off of the cliff.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke edged closer and looked down. Instead of being met with forest and rocks, he was met with a whirlpool of  light. "Come with me to the light," said Itachi. Sasuke stared down into the light. It was somewhat intimidating so he closed his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>"Sasuke? What are you doing?" Asked a worried Ino. Sasuke was too mesmerized to pay attention to her. "Shikamaru. Choji. Wake up. Sasuke's acting weird." Shikamaru and Choji woke up to the silhouette of someone standing on the cliff.</p><p> </p><p>Choji was confused while Shikamaru caught on immediately. He woke the others up quietly to come up with a plan to try to get Sasuke back through persuasion rather than force. Naruto didn't listen, though, and ran straight at the cliff.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke decided. He had no one. No family. Nothing. All of his loving family was dead and gone and he missed them. He closed his eyes to make the jump less intimidating and forced his legs closer to the edge. He shook and when he felt his feet at the edge of the cliff, he raised his feet onto his toes and just before lifting himself off the cliff, he heard the sounds of loud feet.</p><p> </p><p>"Sasuke!" It was Naruto. Sasuke panicked and jumped quickly before Naruto could grab him.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0019"><h2>19. Heroes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The teams try to save Sasuke.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Naruto wasn't sure whether he was suicidal enough to jump off the cliff after Sasuke. He had only a few seconds to decide. Damn it, he thought. He was definitely going to kill Sasuke for this if they ended up dead. Then, he jumped after Sasuke. </p><p> </p><p> Sai drew a bird in his scroll that quickly came to life, flying as fast as it could to catch Sasuke and Naruto. The rest of the group ran to the edge of the cliff, staring after the two, horrified. Sakura felt as if her life had ended and dropped to her knees. Tears fell down her face as she grew more and more lifeless.</p><p> </p><p>Rock Lee walked over to Sakura and gave her a smile of encouragement. "Have faith that they will survive, Sakura. Believe in Naruto. I trust that he wouldn't have jumped if he didn't think he'd survive." The tears stopped falling and new hope filled her body.</p><p> </p><p>She nodded slowly and watched the ink bird fly and fly. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke felt the air rushing through his hair when it registered to him that Naruto was probably dumb enough to jump after him. Apparently he was right because he heard something in the air behind him.</p><p> </p><p>He didn't regret it though. Life sucked. He was an Uchiha and Naruto was an Uzumaki. They were cursed to live awful lives. Maybe Sasuke unintentionally killing Naruto would actually be giving the blonde a favor.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke closed his eyes as they got closer and closer to the ground and just felt it. This was death, he thought. This was what it felt like to die. And it was peaceful. </p><p> </p><p>Just when it seemed as if it would be the end for the two, Sasuke heard a third person falling. He opened his eyes, curiosity taking the best of him, and turned slightly. He was met with Naruto's dumb face but also a large, paper like bird. </p><p> </p><p>He panicked again. He didn't go this far just to be saved. He flailed his hands in the air, trying to fly as the bird attempted to go under him. He knew he looked pathetic but he didn't care. He decided he was going to die so he would. </p><p> </p><p>Just as the bird almost caught him, Sasuke flipped in the air and the bird missed. However, the flip caught him off balance and he found himself skydiving into a rock. The rock came closer and closer. </p><p> </p><p>The bird had caught Naruto and wasn't ready to give up on Sasuke yet. The bird quickly flew under him which broke his fall but didn't quite catch him. Sasuke found himself falling again, this time at a slower speed. Because of how slow the speed was, it was unlikely he would die at this point.</p><p> </p><p>But, he thought, if there was still a chance, he would take it. </p><p> </p><p>He continued falling and the bird continued flying. It soon became obvious that the bird wouldn't catch him. Sasuke felt victorious and closed his eyes yet again, waiting for death. He felt a huge shock against his body before he passed out.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Naruto watched as Sasuke devastatingly hit the ground. He wanted to save him. How could this have happened? The bird flew Naruto up and Naruto punched the bird, trying to get it to fly back down. </p><p> </p><p>The bird kept flying closer to the cliff and as the group saw only Naruto, they fell back in anger, frustration, and sadness. They were glad Naruto was back but they expected Sasuke to come back too. Rock Lee regretted trying to comfort Sakura. He spoke too soon. He looked down, disappointed in himself.</p><p> </p><p>The older teens knew they shouldn't have been surprised. After all, Sasuke was so damaged, they shouldn't have been surprised about anything having to do with him anymore. But something about it was jarring. Like a hit to the face. </p><p> </p><p>Team Taka themselves were shocked too but wouldn't show it. They'd been through so much with Sasuke that it affected them to see him in such pain. He was their leader. If it weren't for him they wouldn't be where they were now.</p><p> </p><p>When the bird dropped Naruto off, Naruto stormed at Sai. "Hey! Your stupid bird wouldn't let me get Sasuke!" Sai explained to Naruto why he wouldn't. "I made a promise to protect my teammates. That includes protecting you from seeing  well. </p><p> </p><p>Everyone gathered together and followed the path down. "Sakura." Naruto said her name with confidence. "Sasuke's alive." She nodded her head through tears. The group subconsciously looked to Shikamaru as he was the smartest.</p><p> </p><p>Shikamaru nodded. "He might be badly injured though." This seemed to calm the group down some and with a bit of weight of their shoulders, they were able to think more clearly.  </p><p> </p><p>When they finally got to Sasuke, there was blood surrounding him and he was on his stomach, face down. Naruto ran to Sasuke first, pushing him around. "Hey. Sasuke. Wake up, you bastard. You've got some explaining to do."</p><p> </p><p>Everyone looked on in anticipation, hoping Sasuke would wake up. Sakura was the second to touch Sasuke. She felt for a pulse and when she got one, she was thrown into medic ninja mode.</p><p> </p><p>"Someone. Get me something to wrap his bones with. If you don't have any cloth to spare, a long and thick leaf will work." Ino had an extra shirt with her for just in case and handed it to Sakura.</p><p> </p><p>Sakura tore the piece of clothing in half so she'd have two pieces of cloth to work with. The first thing she did was turn Sasuke over slowly and gently. Then, she checked for the worst injuries. </p><p> </p><p>He would likely have a concussion but there was nothing she could do about it now. His jaw was broken and so we're several of his ribs. Both arms were broken at the elbow and everything else was minor. He likely fell shoulders first, breaking the fall on his legs. </p><p> </p><p>Sakura wrapped Sasuke's jaw and ribs up and did minor healing jutsus on areas that were less damaged. </p><p> </p><p>The teens sat down, waiting. The air was somber and no one talked, too stuck in their anxious thoughts. After an hour, it started getting light out and Sasuke started waking up. He winced as he attempted to sit up.   Jugo quickly helped him as he coughed up blood, almost choking on it because his jaw was forced closed. </p><p> </p><p>He looked around, met with depressed faces. He wanted to scoff. They hardly knew him. Why were they acting as if his death would make them sad? "They're fake," said a voice. Sasuke tried to respond but his jaw wouldn't allow him to.</p><p> </p><p>"Sasuke. You need to get some rest," said Jugo. Sasuke remembered all of the times he'd experienced pain while with Orochimaru. Orochimaru wouldn't let him rest. Something in Sasuke no longer wanted rest. Yes, rest was good. But he felt the need to prove himself to Orochimaru even though the man was dead.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke tried standing up and extreme pain filled his upper body. The pain was so bad that it blinded him. All he could see was a pulsing red. He tried walking but he didn't know which direction to go so he just walked forward.</p><p> </p><p>He felt arms on his back that picked him up bridal style. The picking up was painful but all he could think of was his pride. "I'm sorry, Sasuke, but I figured you wouldn't willingly jump on my back so I had to resort to this."</p><p> </p><p>Jugo. Of course it was Jugo. Jugo cared more about Sasuke's safety than his orders. Sasuke tried to order him to put him down but his jaw hurt too badly to talk. Naruto clearly found this humorous but something was also clearly wrong because he didn't laugh. </p><p> </p><p>After twenty minutes of walking, the teens got back to the tents. Their team leaders were waiting for them. "See? I told you they'd come," Kakashi told the other leaders. The teams apologized and explained what happened while Jugo walked to Team Taka's tent. He laid Sasuke down before putting his own sleeping bag over him as a blanket. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke slept exceptionally well.</p>
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<a name="section0020"><h2>20. Hell's Dance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sasuke gives his voices bodies by assigning zombies to them. He becomes attached to the zombies while the teams don't want the zombies around. When the teams try to burn one of the zombies, Sasuke jumps into the fire only to start laughing insanely. As if in a trance, he begins to elegantly and insanely dance with the fire.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sasuke woke up three days later. When he woke up, he'd been mostly healed because Sakura had been working on healing him every day. "So, you're up," said a tall man with a too hat on. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke ignored him. He saw his suicide attempt as an emberassing failure. "Can't even kill yourself right." Sasuke couldn't help but agree with the voice. Even though he failed, he no longer felt like genuinely killing himself. He wished he was dead but wouldn't act on it.</p><p> </p><p>He got up and went outside. There were dead zombies if the undead all surrounding their campsite. There must've been an ambush. Sasuke felt lonely. Without much thought, he picked up one of the dead bodies and brought it inside the tent with him. </p><p> </p><p>He fell asleep with his arms wrapped around it. </p><p> </p><p>The teams had returned to the camp site when Suigetsu wanted some rest. He entered the tent when he saw a zombie next to Sasuke. And that wasn't even the scariest part. The scariest part was that Sasuke had his arms wrapped around it as if it was a cuddly toy. </p><p> </p><p>He jumped out of the tent as if he had seen a spider. Karin saw him acting afraid and thought it was the perfect chance to find one of Suigetsu's fears. Hopefully, she'd find something she could use against him.</p><p> </p><p>So, acting casually, Karin walked right up to the tent and opened it only to be met with something rather frightening herself. Sasuke was hugging a zombie! How ridiculous was that? Jugo was the third one to see Sasuke hugging the zombie but the first to act as if it was normal. </p><p> </p><p>For once, Suigetsu and Karin agreed on something: Jugo was clearly also mentally ill. "What are you, scared that Sasuke's hugging another girl" Suigetsu teased. Karin flared with anger. "Suigetsu!"  Then, she thought if a comeback. </p><p> </p><p>She lifted her glasses up and smirked to herself. "Scared of zombies, Suigetsu?" Suigetsu quickly rejected that idea. "Do you know how many of those things I've killed? Of course I'm not scared of them!" </p><p> </p><p>But Karin wasn't done. "Fine. Well, if you're not scared of it then I dare you to go in there." Comedic fear crossed Suigetsu's eyes and he came up with the only comeback he could think of.</p><p> </p><p>"Well, I think you're even more scared than me, Karin. You're only daring me because you're the scared one." Karin huffed. "Fine, then. I'll show you that I'm not afraid. Clearly the one who goes in the tent first is the least afraid of the zombie."</p><p> </p><p>Oh, it was on. Suigetsu and Karin ran to the tent as fast as they could to prove their braveness and pushed each other while they were at it. They continued fighting until they grabbed the attention of the rest of the teams. </p><p> </p><p>"Hey! What are you guys doing? Keep quiet over there," yelled Naruto.  Kakashi and Naruto walked over to the two and Kakashi gave them a look that scared them so bad, they ran into the tent to hide. Naruto peaked his head into the tent to see what they were arguing about in the first place only to be met with the foul smell of death and Sasuke hugging death itself.</p><p> </p><p>"Ah!" He yelled. He quickly jumped back and pointed at the tent in fear. "H-h-he-" "Well, what is it Naruto!? Spit it out already," Sakura said impatiently. The teams stood, waiting for Naruto's fearful answer. </p><p> </p><p>Finally, Naruto blurted it out. "Sasuke's hugging a zombie in the tent!" He expected everyone to react with fear just as he, Karin, and Suigetsu had but everyone looked unimpressed and unsurprised. "Yeah? Well, that's not the weirdest thing he's done." Everyone thought back to when Sasuke took his mother's head and shuddered.</p><p> </p><p>"Yeah. I guess it's not the weirdest thing, huh?" Naruto scratched the back of his head and laughed sheepishly. "But he still shouldn't have that thing in his tent," said Sakura. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke woke up to someone trying to pry something out of his hands. After several seconds of struggling, he finally opened his eyes to see what was going on. Sakura, Kakashi, and Naruto were trying to haul his new favorite zombie out of his tent. That made him rather unhappy.</p><p> </p><p>There was a sort of tug-of-war that went on between them. Sasuke held tightly onto the zombie's arm while the rest of former Team 7 grabbed its other arm. Sasuke was surprisingly strong and lasted for a good few minutes before everyone in the tent could hear the sound of tearing flesh.</p><p> </p><p>The arm on Sasuke's side was tearing off. Former Team 7 saw this as a victory. If they tore the zombie apart, Sasuke wouldn't want it anymore, right? Turns out they were wrong. When the arm on Sasuke's side tore off completely, he he grabbed onto it and laid back down, hugging it while trying to go back to sleep.</p><p> </p><p>His former teammates were rather unhappy about that.</p><p> </p><p>When the next day rolled around, Suigetsu and Karin woke up to an awful stench and a zombie in their face. No, scratch that. There was a whole pile of zombies in the tent. Sasuke was hoarding them as if his life depended on it. </p><p> </p><p>This time, all of the teams helped haul the zombies out. They considered throwing them off the cliff but they were still afraid of Sasuke jumping again so they decided to burn them.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke was very upset when the teams took his zombies out of his tent. They were his. Didn't they know that? The voices wanted bodies and so Sasuke gave them the bodies of zombies. Now the voices spoke to Sasuke from solid forms. The first voice - the really loud female one - was given the female zombie whose arm was ripped off. </p><p> </p><p>That body fit her, though, because she'd been in a war where her left arm was chopped off.</p><p> </p><p>The second voice - a satisfying male's voice - was given the body of a handsome samurai. He told Sasuke he was a samurai once. The third voice was another male who was aggressive so Sasuke gave him the body of a buff zombie.</p><p> </p><p>There were several other voices but those were the primary. How did Sasuke manage to bring them in the tent without waking his teammates up? It was actually easy. They were so tired from fighting yesterday that they didn't notice a thing!</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke was happy and satisfied with himself.  But that quickly changed when the teams decided to burn the corpses.</p><p> </p><p>The second they started a fire, Sasuke ran over to them and begged them not to burn the zombies. "They'll be mad at me," he said. "They just got bodies." Of course, the group didn't know what he was talking about but in Sasuke's mind, they were knowingly evil.</p><p> </p><p>"I trusted you!" He yelled while on his knees. They threw the first body into the flames. The loud female's body. "You'll burn in hell," she told Sasuke before screaming the screams of a tortured soul. Sasuke began to pull at his hair and rocked back and forth. </p><p> </p><p>This wasn't good. She was going to come back and haunt him. He knew it for a fact. She was angry at him and blamed him for her death. Sasuke started breathing deeply. </p><p> </p><p>What was once a humorous thing spawned from Sasuke hugging a zombie turned into a nightmare from Sasuke running to the flame to help the burning woman. The flame was large and Sasuke's only chance of saving her was to jump into it.</p><p> </p><p>The teams panicked and Sasuke was burning.</p><p> </p><p>The pain of the burning was so bad that Sasuke began to laugh. Insanity crept through his mind as his body was pushed to the edge. He laughed harder and harder and rocked back and forth.</p><p> </p><p>How had this happened? How did something that was once ridiculous turn into something that was such a tragedy? </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke's hysterical laughed didn't stop. It only grew louder. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke thought the flames were pretty and wanted to dance with them. He stood on top of the flame and elegantly danced. If he wasn't burning in flames, Naruto would be joking about how, even though the dance was technically elegant, it was still slightly cringey. </p><p> </p><p>But Sasuke was burning in flames. And he was burning beautifully. </p><p> </p><p>Suigetsu who was previously inside the tent resting was now heading out to watch the burning I'd the zombies. That was when he he heard people calling for Sasuke, telling him to stop doing something.</p><p> </p><p>Suigetsu's interest was piqued and so he hurried to the fire only to be met with Sasuke burning elegantly. He wasn't quite sure what he was doing but it looked like he was dancing while laughing. </p><p> </p><p>It was as if Sasuke was being influenced by the evil fires of hell. As if Satan himself were dancing with him. Suigetsu found himself being mesmerized and shook himself out of it. He hurried and blew water from his mouth, putting out the flames. </p><p> </p><p>The second the flames went out, Sasuke collapsed. It was as if Sasuke himself was in a trance. He woke up a few minutes later. Luckily, the burn wounds were something Sakura could heal.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Kinda cringe. Sorry about that. And the "trance" part is to show how Sasuke is losing his humanity and falling more and more into insanity. There's nothing particularly supernatural going on during that scene. He's just crazy.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0021"><h2>21. Two Days</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The zombies/voices scratch at Sasuke and Kakashi and Sasuke talk about past Team 7.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I love all of the great comments I get from you guys. Your comments brighten my day!</p><p>Longer chapter than usual. Just over 2k words! Kinda proud of myself because my chapters are usually just over 1k words.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kakashi estimated that all of the zombies would be killed within two more days. </p><p> </p><p>As if Sasuke dancing with fire wasn't creepy enough, he salvaged the zombie they had attempted to burn and now had a group of zombies he would sit down and talk to. </p><p> </p><p>Even creepier than the fact that Sasuke was talking to corpses, though, was the fact that he'd often do it at night. So when one of the ninja got up to go to the bathroom, they'd wake up to whispering in the dead of night. </p><p> </p><p>Multiple people from the teams attempted to convince Sasuke he was just talking to corpses. "Hn. They speak back," he'd say. And, as if to prove it, he'd let whomever was trying to convince him sit down where he was sitting so they could also proceed to speak to corpses. Of course, the corpses wouldn't speak back. </p><p> </p><p>One of the hardest decisions they had to make was whether to pretend they heard the zombies speaking to make Sasuke happy or to tell the truth; that they heard nothing. None of them ended up lying to Sasuke but it was a true decision they felt the need to make.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke's tent ended up being too filled with corpses for the rest of his teammates to fit so his teammates had to set up a tent of their own. (Luckily, they'd brought an extra.) Sasuke always cuddled with the undead while sleeping which could've been seen adorable were the circumstances different. It was another situation that would've been different if it weren't for the fact that it had to do with corpses.</p><p> </p><p>It was one in the morning when Sasuke heard voices nagging at him. Not only that but they were also pulling at his hair. He got up immediately and looked around to find who was pulling his hair but he saw nothing but the ugly faces of the long dead zombies.</p><p> </p><p>They must've been playing with him, the bastards. He sighed. Dark circles covered the under of his eyes. He couldn't sleep well with the voices, shadows, ghosts, and monsters constantly trying to talk to him and influence him.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke decided to go for a walk. "Take me with you," said one zombie. "Me too," said another. Sasuke glared at them. "No." Then, all of the zombies, ghosts, and shadows started screaming at him, pulling at his hair, and scratching him. </p><p> </p><p>He put his hands to his ears and closed his eyes. "Shut up. Shut up. I told you I'm not taking you with me. You're too heavy." But the voices didn't stop. "You're just saying that because you don't want to take us with you." "You hate us, don't you?" "Why are you so mean to us?" "If you don't take us with you, I'll kill you and all of your friends."</p><p> </p><p>"They're not my friends," he said. "And neither are you so. So go away and shut the hell up." But it would be a lie if he said that the last thing one of the zombies said was a threat. What if they had the ability to attack him or his teammates? They'd attacked him before so why wouldn't they be able to hurt others?</p><p> </p><p>Not only that but there was nothing at all that he could do to stop them. He hadn't found a weak point of theirs yet other than burning them to death. But what if they were able to leave the zombie bodies when the bodies burned? </p><p> </p><p>After all, the voices transferred from his head to the zombie bodies so why couldn't they transfer back? </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke grew frustrated. All he wanted to do was go for a walk. Why did things always have to be so complicated? After a bit more of the voices yelling at him and hurting him, he got so frustrated that he ignored their screams and just got out of the tent once and for all. </p><p> </p><p>The zombies weren't happy and he didn't know what they would do to him when he got back but he was tired of them. He needed a break. And even though the shadows and ghosts still followed him, at least he was rid of the zombies. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke ran to a lake, leaping on to trees branch after branch. He hadn't done much but rest the past few days so he found the run to be relaxing. The lake was beautiful and reflected the night sky. "You should jump into the lake. It'll be fun," said a short, old female ghost. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke didn't mind the old lady ghost. She was like a kind grandma. She was of his favorite creatures who followed him around. Since she had never done anything to harm him before, he trusted that jumping into the lake would be fine.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke undressed and jumped into the lake. The scratches that covered his arms burned badly in the lake and the lake was freezing cold. But after a few minutes, the burning scratches cooled and the freezing water warmed. </p><p> </p><p>Because of the way the sky reflected in the lake, it was almost as if Sasuke was swimming in the sky. He floated on the water gracefully and let the peace of the nature surrounding him fill his soul.</p><p> </p><p>Often times, when he was completely relaxed, the ghosts, shadows, and creatures would stop speaking. Moments like those were when Sasuke doubted the realness of the things he was seeing and wondered if they were simply a cause of stress.</p><p> </p><p>But they always came back and whenever Sasuke saw them, he couldn't help but believe they were real. Denying their existence would be like denying the legitimacy of his senses. And no one accused their eyes of lying or their ears of mishearing or the sense of touch being unreal.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke finished with the lake an hour later. He expected to be in there longer but his thoughts were starting to get too deep. He redressed and headed back to the camp site. </p><p> </p><p>When he got inside his tent, the voices started hurting him again. Only this time more visciously. They grabbed onto him with their zombie bodies and wouldn't let him go as they scratched him all over.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke struggled as much as he could and eventually had to fight back. He didn't want to do that because he figured it would make them even more pissed. But he had to do what he had to do and in that moment, he had to defend himself.</p><p> </p><p>Blood filled the tent as he fought the zombies off. The scratches on his arms got deeper as they cdug their nails deep into his skin. His arm was a bloody mess. Just when Sasuke almost got out of their hold, his tent zipped opened. He turned around for a split second to see who it was. It was Kakashi. </p><p> </p><p>"What are you doing in there?" He asked. Sasuke turned back around. "They have me. They're mad at me." Kakashi stepped into the tent and saw Sasuke struggling with a zombie. "Looks like you weren't kidding," he said.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke didn't expect Kakashi to believe him and was filled with surprise. "Why-" Why did Kakashi believe him? Was he just lying so Sasuke's pride wouldn't be any more ruined than it already had been? What were his intentions.</p><p> </p><p>Kakashi took out a shuriken and threw it at one of the zombie's necks. The zombie collapsed and Sasuke wasn't sure if he should say thank you or if he should be angry for Kakashi playing along. Kakashi answered Sasuke's silent question.</p><p> </p><p>"There really was a zombie there. He was probably passed out rather than dead." Sasuke frowned. "What about the others?" Kakashi leaned down. "That would be you seeing things." Sasuke looked at the zombies who were still attacking him.</p><p> </p><p>"Then why is my arm all scratched up?" Kakashi looked at Sasuke's arm and then back at him. "It's scratched up because of the alive zombie. Either that or you were scratching it yourself." Sasuke felt the zombies still attacking him and didn't know what to do to make it stop. </p><p> </p><p>If they weren't real, how would he get rid of them? How could he fight his own imagination? Kakashi saw the distress in Sasuke's eyes and stood up straight. "I'm going to go fight some of the undead. Why don't you help me?" Sasuke glared at him. "How am I supposed to help you when I can't get out of the zombies' hold?" </p><p> </p><p>Kakashi walked over. And picked Sasuke up. Sasuke glared deeply. First Jugo, now Kakashi. Who next? Sakura? Kakashi carried him out of the tent and the zombies let go. Kakashi set him down when they got out. "Before leaving, let's bandage you up." Sasuke complied.</p><p> </p><p>The bandages were on and they were ready to head out. </p><p> </p><p>The sun was beginning to come up. Sasuke stared at the beautiful sky for a bit while running. The ninja had cleared the area quite well and so it took a couple of hours before they ran into any zombies.</p><p> </p><p>"While you were out, we found a way to kill the new types of undead," said Kakashi. "The key is to prevent your ears from hearing any sound. Their abilities work only if their victim can hear." He stopped and handed Sasuke ear plugs. "These are some of the best sound cancelling ear plugs around. We'll use them the second we run into any of the undead."</p><p> </p><p>"Their weak spot is the head. Specifically the brain. Just like any of the other zombies. The advantages they have are that we won't be able to hear each other making plans and we won't be able to hear sound which means not hearing what direction they're coming from."</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke nodded. </p><p> </p><p>When they finally ran into some of the new undead types, Sasuke immediately put the ear plugs in. He didn't need sound to know what they're next move would be because of his Sharingan.</p><p> </p><p>Fighting them was actually rather easy now that they knew their weak spots. When they cleared the area, they looked for more until they found more. And fought those ones too. At times, Sasuke found himself fighting the air because he thought he saw zombies when he hadn't. </p><p> </p><p>The fighting process continued until lunch time came around. Kakashi and Sasuke sat on a tree and ate. When they finished eating, there was an awkward silence. "I'm sorry I failed you," Kakashi finally said.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke looked up, surprised. "You didn't," he finally replied. "Going to Orochimaru was my choice and my choice only. Don't be so conceited that you'd actually think my choice was your fault." Kakashi sighed, closed his eye, and looked back up again. </p><p> </p><p>"If I was powerful enough, you wouldn't have felt the need to go to Orochimaru." Sasuke was about to deny it when he realized that was the truth. No, he didn't blame Kakashi. But if he felt like Kakashi was strong enough at the time, he wouldn't have gone to Orochimaru. </p><p> </p><p>But Sasuke's leaving wasn't Kakashi's fault in any way. He left of his own accord. After some thinking, Sasuke replied. "I still left by choice. It was my decision. I was the one who decided to leave. Not you."</p><p> </p><p>Kakashi stood up and smiled at him. "Well, anyway. We should get moving." Sasuke stood up and they were off again. They fought until evening and got to the campsite rather late because they'd been traveling for hours.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke went to his tent to see if the zombies were still going to attack him but they were actually asleep. He laid down between the zombies which woke them up and, again, they scratched at Sasuke. But this time he didn't fight back. This time, he let them hurt him. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke felt the need for pain. The need for a punishment. He felt like a bad person and wanted to be hurt because of it. Both of his arms were now covered in cuts. And he didn't want to heal.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Also, keep in mind how Kakashi said there should be about 2 days left before all of the zombies are killed.</p><p>Thank you so much for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0022"><h2>22. One Day</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sasuke kills a bunny (there will be a warning when the scene comes and goes) and he falls deeper into apathy.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next day, Sasuke had scratches covering his arms everywhere. He out on a long sleeved shirt to cover them. If Sakura saw the cuts, she'd heal him and he felt he didn't deserve that. He got up and headed outside. </p><p> </p><p>The zombies were almost done being killed. Now they just had to hunt down the ones they missed. </p><p> </p><p>BUNNY DIES ~ BEGINNING ~</p><p> </p><p>A wave of tiredness hit Sasuke so he went back to his tent to lay down again. "Get up," said one of the voices. "There's a bunny in out room!" Screamed another one of them. "Get it out!" "No," said one deep male voice.</p><p> </p><p>"Kill it."</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke sat up and before he knew it, the zombies were yelling, "kill it! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!" The adorable brown bunny hopped over to Sasuke and he looked at it, unsure what to do. The deep voice that belonged to a buff zombie stood up. And, right in front of Sasuke, he kicked the bunny across the tent hard. </p><p> </p><p>The bunny squeaked. Sasuke moved to grab it, to help it but the other voices held him down. A shadow's smile grew and grew until it was laughing hysterically. The buff undead picked the bunny up and started twisting its head to the right. </p><p> </p><p>"No! Stop!" Sasuke yelled. But the man didn't listen. He continues twisting the bunny's head until it started to squeal in fear. The adorable bunny looked around the room for any kind of an exit but the universe failed him.</p><p> </p><p>The buff man continued twisting its head until it wailed. Sasuke could hear it screaming for help. And then, suddenly, there was a pop. The bunny stopped squealing and its head was at a strange angle. Its eyes still looked around the room for an exit and, finally, it went limp.</p><p> </p><p>The tent unzipped and someone walked in. Hinata and Ino. "Hey, Sasuke. Do you like the bunny Hinata brought you?" Sasuke looked at them and then back to the bunny - who was in his right hand. He was confused. Even worse was that not only was the bunny in his hand but its head was between his fingers. </p><p> </p><p>Tears filled Hinata's eyes and Ino looked like she was going to be sick.  They left the tent. Sasuke hated himself. Soon, Naruto came storming into the tent to yell at Sasuke. "Sasuke! You made Hinata cry! Why would you hurt a defenseless animal who did nothing to you?" </p><p> </p><p>~END~ BUNNY DEATH</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke was at a loss. He didn't know what to say. "Well? Say something, you asshole!" Naruto looked ready to punch him. He laid down. He didn't care if he was punched. Naruto punched him in the face. "How could you act like it doesn't matter?" </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke had nothing to say. He turned his head and waited for Naruto to punch him again. Naruto did. Multiple times. (Sasuke wasn't counting.) Naruto was immensely angry. "Sasuke! Why are you just sitting there taking it like its nothing? Did the bunny really matter that little to you?"</p><p> </p><p>"Kill him," whispered some voices. "He's part of the Leaf Village who killed your brother." But Sasuke didn't deserve to defend himself. He wanted to die. "His crimes shouldn't be left unpunished." Sasuke thought about his brother, his clan, his family.   They needed to be avenged before he died. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke was devastated by everything that was going on and was ready to give up on life. But one thing still shined: his craving for vengeance. He got up. "I have to fight," he told himself. Naruto got up. "Yeah! Fight me, you bastard!" Naruto left the tent and waited for Sasuke outside.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke followed him. Naruto ran at him first, rasengan ready and everything. But Sasuke didn't need anything but his fists. He felt so terrible that he was certain he could get out his pent-up angst this way. </p><p> </p><p>Naruto ran at him and he dodged. The teams slowly gathered around, cheering for Naruto to win. Naruto kept running at Sasuke, fists ready but Sasuke kept dodging. Over and over. And over. And over. Until Naruto was tired. </p><p> </p><p>Then, Sasuke ran at the blonde. Apparently Naruto was in worse shape than he thought because it was easy for him to knock him over. Sasuke sat on Naruto's lap to keep him down while he punched him left and right. Naruto kicked his legs, trying to get Sasuke off of him but Sasuke's fists kept raining down in him. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke thought of his much he hated himself and hit Naruto hard. He thought of his brother and hit him harder. He thought if all of the trauma he'd been through with Orochimaru and hit him the hardest. With every punch, Sasuke got his angst out.</p><p> </p><p>When Naruto's face started to get really bruised and bloodied, Kakashi pulled Sasuke off. "Calm down," said Kakashi. "Why don't we resolve this by talking it out?" "Hn." Naruto stood up. "He killed the bunny Hinata gave him to help with his loneliness." Sasuke didn't let himself feel any guilt. In fact, he challenged Naruto, daring him to try to fight him again.</p><p> </p><p>Naruto glared back at him, accepting the challenge. Kakashi stood between the two. "Naruto. Let Sasuke explain himself." Sasuke didn't want to explain himself but decided it was better than having to deal with Naruto all day.</p><p> </p><p>"I was laying down when one of the voices," he didn't allow himself to feel crazy, "decided to kill the bunny. It wasn't me." Sasuke felt that, if everyone was against him, he might as well piss everyone off. So he went out of his way to glare at each and every person around him besides his teammates, making sure they knew who would win in a fight between the two.</p><p> </p><p>This seemed to piss them off even more but like Sasuke was thinking, it didn't matter because they'd hate him either way. Naruto growled at Sasuke and Sasuke decided to take it a step even further. "Animal," he said. Naruto lashed out at him, only to be stopped by Yamato. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke walked away. He knew he was making everyone hate him but he felt like he needed to punish himself. He needed everyone to hate him because he deserved no one. Maybe it was because he knew they cared about him and that made him scared or maybe it was because he was beginning to care about them and needed to create a barrier for when he'd get revenge. </p><p> </p><p>Whatever it was, he wanted them to hate him. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke went out on his own to kill the zombies that were left. He killed off as many as he could before it got dark. He was going to go back to the campsite before dark but felt rather self destructive so he stayed.</p><p> </p><p>Throughout the night, zombies came in hordes, trying to kill him. But he fought them all off. He imagined that some were Orochimaru and some were the Elders of the Leaf Village. He killed as many as he could without getting overly tired. </p><p> </p><p>When he finally got tired, he headed back. </p><p> </p><p>When Sasuke got back, Naruto was there, sitting down and waiting for him. He tried to ignore the blue eyed idiot but said idiot was too stupid to understand he didn't want to talk. Luckily, Naruto didn't look like he wanted to fight. </p><p> </p><p>"Sasuke," Naruto said after getting up. "Look, I know how messed up you are. Kakashi sensei told me you're sick in the head." Sasuke wanted to kill Kakashi now. Naruto sighed loudly and hopelessly. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke knew he had to say something to end the conversation or else Naruto would talk to him all night. He thought of something to say that would acknowledge Naruto's implied apology without acknowledging the "sick in the head" part.</p><p> </p><p>"Naruto," he said. "Forget about it." That was his way of accepting Naruto's implied apology. It took Naruto a second to understand this but when he did, he smiled and chuckled. "Goodnight, Sasuke." </p><p> </p><p>They each headed to bed.</p><p> </p><p>While getting comfortable, the voices started to chant, "kill him, kill him, kill the blonde idiot, kill him, kill him, kill the blonde idiot." One of the zombies sat up and started to choke him. Sasuke bat at its arms which proved unhelpful. </p><p> </p><p>He didn't want to kill any of the voices because he didn't want them to haunt him for the rest of his life like the other people he'd killed. But as his body paled and his lungs cried out, he found himself wrapping his own two hands around the undead's neck.</p><p> </p><p>As he choked even more, his hands tightened desperately on the zombie's neck. Sasuke started seeing black and suddenly, air came gasping into his lungs. When he got enough into his lungs, he inspected the zombie.</p><p> </p><p>The zombie's neck was broken badly. He shook the zombie, trying to wake it up. But its eyes never opened. Sasuke panicked. He killed the zombie which meant yet another ghost would haunt him. He picked the zombie's body up and threw it into a canyon. </p><p> </p><p>When he finished, he heard the voice of the zombie in his head. "You killed me. After all of the advice I'd given you and the help I helped you, you killed me!" She screamed. Then, Sasuke realized something. Something that first made him scoff which involved into a smile. </p><p> </p><p>"You never helped me," he said. Then, as if his eyes had been opened, "you deserved to die." His smile grew wider and wider until he made choked sounds that became loud laughs.</p><p> </p><p>It was the truth. Why should he care that she died? All she ever did was scratch him and pull at his hair. All she ever did was bitch. Who cared if she was now a ghost that would forever haunt him?</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke already had ghosts haunting him for eternity anyway so what was one more? And why should he hate himself when the world wronged him? Rightfully, he should be the one hating the world.</p><p> </p><p>That night, Sasuke slept well.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0023"><h2>23. Tomorrow</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sasuke tries to figure out how to break the bonds with his comrades.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This book is almost over. There will be two parts to it. This part and the second. I don't want to spoil anything yet but there will be no happy ending.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sasuke woke up with greater confidence than usual. He'd seen so much death at this point that his mind rejected it, creating desensitization. He needed to stop caring so he could break his bonds.</p><p>He'd told himself that before but this time he meant it. Life was evil. Life was cruel. The voices in his head tried to kill him. He was tired of it. He was tired of everything. He wanted to die but even more, he wanted to change the world. </p><p>Sasuke thought back to the Akatsuki's plans to take over the world. He needed to stick to these plans. This was the last day before they would catch Kabuto. Then, the contract would end. It was time that Sasuke cut his bonds with everyone.</p><p>He thought back to when Orochimaru made him care for a cat for a week. Then, when the week was over, he killed it. Life was cruel but it was even worse when you had bonds.</p><p>If Sasuke hadn't created bonds with that cat, he wouldn't have cared that it died. He needed to cut bonds with the people around him or else he'd get hurt when they had to fight. He needed to get revenge which meant he needed to not care about the people he'd get revenge on.</p><p>The zombies were rather annoyed, it seemed, as they were scratching Sasuke's arms more than usual. Sasuke looked down. His eyes widened. This time, it wasn't the zombies scratching him. Instead, it was him himself doing it. He lifted his nails from his arms and inspected them. Blood was crusted beneath his nails and blood ran down his arms.</p><p>But he didn't care. If scratching himself was the only way to subconsciously take his stress away, then Sasuke would do it anytime. </p><p>He didn't bother to wear long sleeves today. Instead, he wrapped his arms up with bandages. When he left the tent, he made sure to see the teams differently. As he walked to eat breakfast with everyone, he thought of a way to break the bonds fast and easy.</p><p>Sasuke would have to make them hate him. If they hated him, then why should he care about them? Then, it would be easy to kill them. "Good morning, Sasuke," said Ino. He ignored her. She took her anger out on Sakura but Sasuke didn't bother to listen to their squabbling.</p><p>Orochimaru's voice echoed in his head. "Break your bonds and you will be free." He hated Orochimaru but there was truth to what he said. Only when his bonds were broken would Sasuke be able to achieve his revenge. And revenge was the closest he'd get to happiness.</p><p>Sasuke thought it would be easy to make them hate him but whenever he did something rude, they chalked it up to his mental illness. He'd avoided them and insulted them but it was all for naught. Eventually, he gave up. How had this happened? How had he begun to care so much for these idiots? </p><p>Sasuke closed his eyes. </p><p>'Itachi,' he thought. 'I'm sorry. I promise I'll avenge you. Just give me time.' Then, he reopened his eyes. He needed to avenge his brother. If he didn't, he wasn't sure he could live with himself. </p><p>When they finished killing the zombies, Sasuke took a break while Kakashi contacted other groups who were killing zombies to see if they had finished in their areas as well. Sasuke sat on the edge of a cliff, noticing Shikamaru's watchful eye. They clearly still didn't trust him with cliffs.</p><p>He soaked in the nature around him while thinking nonstop about how to break his bonds. There was only one easy answer at this point, though: to break his bonds with them, Sasuke would have no choice but to kill them.</p><p>It was settled. </p><p>He needed to kill his comrades. It shouldn't have been harder than killing his own brother but it was proving to seem that way. Why were emotions so complicated? Life would be better without emotions.</p><p>Sasuke stood up, thinking of ways to kill his comrades. "Stab, stab, stab," said a shadow creature. "Choke, drown; choke, drown," said another. He put his hands to his hand. He just wanted the voices to shut up already. "I will kill them in the way I want to. Not the way you want to," he said firmly.</p><p>Kakashi appeared behind Sasuke. "Kill who?" He asked. Sasuke looked his former sensei in the eye. Even though he had no choice but to kill them when this was all over, that didn't mean he had to lie to them.</p><p>But words didn't leave his mouth. Instead, they were trapped inside and couldn't get out. He wanted to speak but something was stopping him. Kakashi's face turned completely serious. </p><p>"Sasuke. I know you care. And it's your choice but I know I'm speaking for all of us when I say that I don't want to be your enemy. We see you as a comrade. I can only imagine the devastation that would happen if you fought us." Kakashi smiled. "Well. That's all I wanted to say." </p><p>Sasuke said nothing back. He wished he could explain that he had no choice but that would've sounded pathetic. And Uchihas were not pathetic. He thought back to the experiments performed on him as well as the screaming and tears. 'Well,' he thought, 'most Uchihas are not pathetic.'</p><p>The day ended much too quickly. Sasuke had come to a decision but the decision felt forced. He only hoped he would be able to follow through with it. In the end, he may have to physically force himself to kill off his comrades one by one. </p><p>And when that happened, he would turn into a monster. </p><p>Sasuke thought of all of the terrible pain in the world. If being a monster was what it took to make the world a happy place, then being a monster he would be.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading!</p>
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<a name="section0024"><h2>24. Kabuto's Death</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Kabuto dies.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Book 1 is almost over.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sasuke woke up in a small pool of blood the next morning. He'd apparently been scratching at his arms while sleeping. It was a simple fix, though, as bandages existed. He stood up, ignoring the zombies and joining everyone for breakfast. </p><p> </p><p>"Can I eat your finger?" Asked the kind old woman. What a strange  thing to ask. "No," he replied. Everyone looked at him but quickly looked back down. They were used to his talking to the air. </p><p> </p><p>"All of the zombies have been eliminated," said Kakashi. Everyone seemed excited. Sasuke didn't understand their excitement. Who cared if some zombies were dead? Kakashi continued. "The ANBU have found the location of the real Kabuto. We'll be going after him today."</p><p> </p><p>It was going to be a hard day's work. </p><p> </p><p>When they finished eating breakfast, everyone packed their stuff. Sasuke took the zombies out of his tent and put his tent away. He knew he couldn't bring the zombies with him. As deluded as he was, he was still logical enough to understand that it would be impossible to kill Kabuto if everyone was busy carrying an undead.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke sat with the zombies for a while before leaving. The zombies let their anger out on him. "How dare you leave us?" "We've done so much for you!" "You good-for-nothing child." Sasuke listened to their tantrums. </p><p> </p><p>He wasn't sure what would happen to the voices if he abandoned them. Maybe they would just teleport back to his head. In a way, he wished they would disappear but he knew that wish was too good to become true. The zombies sat and screamed. Sasuke listened.</p><p> </p><p>Then, it was time to go.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke was halfway considering ditching the mission altogether and living with the zombies until he died but he knew the only way to get revenge was through killing Kabuto and then the Leaf Elders. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke stood up and followed the group. Kakashi told them what the plan was so far and the groups listened intently. The plan was simple. All they had to do was ambush Kabuto with their strongest jutsus. </p><p> </p><p>With the Leaf and the Akatsuki together in this, it would definitely work. The teams straightened up and prepared themselves for the fight ahead of them. "Ready?" Asked Kakashi. When everyone nodded, they were off. </p><p> </p><p>It took only two hours to reach the destination. Kabuto had a hideout underground similar to Orochimaru's old hideouts. The teams met with other units and the Akatsuki. Sasuke caught Pain's eye that told him him to come over. </p><p> </p><p>So Sasuke gathered his teammates and met up with the Akatsuki members. The Leaf Ninja watched as he left, both with sadness and betrayal. He ignored their looks. They needed to accept that he was on the bad side now and that he would attack them if they got in his way. </p><p> </p><p>Pain had a look of approval when the group met up with him. Sasuke narrowed his eyes. He didn't need approval from the man. He was his own person and was not an object for the Akatsuki to use. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke quickly snapped himself out of it. Since when did he have such thoughts about the Akatsuki? They were a team. He needed to work with them. </p><p> </p><p>But Madara was watching Sasuke and noticed his sway in loyalty to the  Akatsuki. That would need to change, he thought. Sasuke clearly needed to be reminded of who's side he was on. </p><p> </p><p>The teams, led by the ANBU and Pain and Madara, waited. And then, at the count of three, they ambushed the hideout. Kabuto sat there as if he gave up. Everyone used their strongest jutsus, some of which excitedly showed them off. But when Sasuke ran into the hideout with his team, he stopped. </p><p> </p><p>He put his hand out to stop his team. Something felt wrong. Why was Kabuto sitting there calmly, as if he wasn't being ambushed? Then, Sasuke sensed it. "Up there," he yelled. There was a second floor in the room and he jumped up to it.</p><p> </p><p>Soon, others got the hint and followed. Sasuke reached the real Kabuto first. He threw flames at the man just to test the waters. The flames disintegrated after hitting one of Kabuto's snake tails. </p><p> </p><p>"Sasuke," said the man. The room was now filled with all of the shinobi. "It's been a while." Sasuke looked for the best way to attack him. But before he could come to a decision, everyone started ambushing the man again. </p><p> </p><p>He was filled with frustration and ultimately gave up on a single plan. If everyone wanted to kill the guy by ambush then killing the guy by ambush he would do. He ran at the man, throwing the black flames of amaterasu at him. </p><p> </p><p>Kabuto was much, much stronger than before but when Madara attacked him, he had no chance whatsoever. Madara finished him off with a blow to the chest that left his ribs and heart exposed.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke had an urge. The urge to tear the still beating heart if the man who had helped Orochimaru perform so many experiments on him and others. The urge was strong and he started imagining himself actually doing it until Madara stepped aside for him to let him finish the job.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke wasn't sure whether to be grateful that he was letting him fulfill his urge or upset that he was condoning murder. Either way, he found himself walking towards Kabuto, who lay almost lifeless on the floor, and looked at him in disgust.</p><p> </p><p>"Look at what you've become," he said. "Nothing but a pathetic, squandering snake." Kabuto squirmed in the slightest. "Just like Orochimaru." Kabuto smiled in a way that made it seem he'd just orgasmed. He rolled his eyes back and groaned in both pain and pleasure.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke was disgusted. Kabuto had been so obsessed with Orochimaru that simply being compared to him gave him orgasmic pleasure. He wanted to end his pathetic existence. So he knelt down and put his hand around the man's beating heart.</p><p> </p><p>And pulled it out.</p><p> </p><p>Hearts were harder to pull out than he thought as the were connected to strong body tubes but the heart's tube eventually broke apart in a bloody mess and Kabuto was no longer breathing. The voices had apparently transferred to his mind because they were laughing maniacally
</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke squeezed the heart, watching as blood dripped everywhere. Then, an even odder urge hit him. He wanted to eat the heart. So, to everyone's horror, he did. He smiled as he ripped the heart apart with his teeth. The organ was actually rather tasty. </p><p> </p><p>He picked apart the organ until it became small enough to swallow. Madara smiled. Sasuke laughed. The Leaf Ninja were horrified. The voices were quiet. And Sasuke was happy.</p>
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<a name="section0025"><h2>25. The End Of A Cycle</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The Akatsuki retreat to their hideout and Sasuke thinks about revenge. </p><p>Last Chapter.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>That was it. Kabuto was dead and the zombies were gone. The voices of the zombies returned to Sasuke's head and the contract was over. Part of the contract was the promise to let the Akatsuki walk freely without hunting them down for 24 hours. </p><p> </p><p>So that's what happened.</p><p> </p><p>The second everyone processed that it was all over, the Akatsuki got up and ran. They ran into the shadows of the forest and ran until the sun was set. Sasuke didn't miss the sad looks his former comrades gave as he left the scene. He licked his lips. His lips were dried with blood and the evening sun was red. Even though Sasuke knew it was all over, it hadn't hit him, yet, that him and the Leaf we're back to enemies. </p><p> </p><p>He looked at his teammates who seemed to be a bit down. It seemed that even they were the slightest bit upset about becoming enemies with the Leaf again. Sasuke looked ahead and forced himself not to look back. It was over.</p><p> </p><p>He needed to leave the Leaf behind and let go. They were enemies now who wouldn't hesitate to kill him.</p><p> </p><p>The Akatsuki arrived at the Hideout. Sasuke and his team immediately went to their shared room. When they got there, they sat in silence. It was an unspoken rule between them to not talk about how they would miss the Leaf.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke fell asleep.</p><p> </p><p>When he woke up later, Sasuke thought he was in his tent. He opened his eyes only for reality to hit. He was no longer with the Leaf Village shinobi. He refused to let that fact upset him. He needed to kill the Leaf Elders and anyone who got in his way. </p><p> </p><p>Since the Hideout caves were dark, Sasuke could only tell the time by personal knowledge.  He guessed that it was 2 A.M. by how long he'd been asleep but the guess was shaky at best. He got up and decided to stroll the dark cave's halls.</p><p> </p><p>The caves reminded him of his time with Orochimaru and he hated it. Memories from the last crept up on him and he could hardly take being in such a suffocating space. He forced himself to deal with it. Eventually, he found Madara.</p><p> </p><p> Or Madara found him. He wasn't sure which.</p><p> </p><p>"Madara," said Sasuke. Madara walked towards him quietly. "Let's talk," he said. Sasuke nodded and followed the man. Luckily, Madara had decided they would talk outside. "Sasuke. I noticed you seem.... hesitant," he said.</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke wasn't sure what to say. It would be an obvious lie if he denied it but he didn't want to accept what he said either. So, without saying anything, he stared straight ahead, refusing to meet Madara's eye.</p><p> </p><p>"The Leaf Village made your beloved brother kill our entire family one by one. I know the want for revenge still resides in you. And it's likely to never go away until you avenge our family." Sasuke listened quietly, unsure what to say.</p><p> </p><p>"I found out how to make your voices go away but you have to believe me." Sasuke narrowed his eyes. Why did he need to believe him first? Finally, he nodded, wanting an answer already. "When I started going insane, I took my brother's eyes." </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke listened intently. "Your brother told you to kill your best friend if you wanted to kill him. Now, I know you thought it was because that was the only way to awake the Mangekyo Sharingan. But that's not true.</p><p> </p><p>Itachi knew you would never kill your best friend for the Mangekyo. But he still wanted you to kill your best friend. Do you know why?" Sasuke wanted to pretend not to be interested but curiosity got the best of him. He sighed. "Why?" </p><p> </p><p>"The only way to keep from going insane is by doing what the voices ask." Sasuke had noticed that already. Whenever he did a task the voices wanted, they'd either shut up or become nicer. Sasuke sighed again, only this time from boredom. He already knew all of this. Why was Madara wasting his time? Then, Madara said it.</p><p> </p><p>"Have the voices ever told you to kill your best friend?"</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke's eyes widened dramatically. The answer was yes, of course. Madara saw the look on Sasuke's face and took it as a yes. "That's why you need to kill your best friend. The voices will only become silent when you kill the one you care about most.</p><p> </p><p>That's why I took my brother's eyes. He was the one I cared for the most and so I killed him. I did some research while with the Leaf and found out it wasn't necessary for me to take his eyes as my insanity would've gone away as long as I killed him."</p><p> </p><p>"That's why I didn't tell you sooner; because I wasn't sure if taking your friend's eyes would help you like it did me." Sasuke didn't know what to say. Life was all about sacrifice. To have one thing, you needed to sacrifice another. It was a world full of taking and no giving. </p><p> </p><p>He wasn't even surprised that he had to kill Naruto if he wanted to get better. So, now, he had to make a choice. Would he kill Naruto to save himself? </p><p> </p><p>The answer was a yes.</p><p> </p><p>Yes, he would kill his best friend to get better. Why? Because he needed to break his bonds anyway and so what better way to break his bonds with Naruto than by killing him?</p><p> </p><p>Sasuke never said it was going to be easy. He'd need to mentally prepare himself for this. But he knew before that he needed to kill Naruto and now the need was only stronger. A somber wind blew through Sasuke's hair. </p><p> </p><p>But did he have the mental strength to do it? He wasn't sure. That was why he had to prepare. He needed to make himself mentally stronger between then and the time they would attack Konoha. </p><p> </p><p>Sasuke looked down on the world from the cave. This was it. He would soon get his revenge.</p>
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